A Walk by Dragons
by LoweFantasy
Summary: Josephine Wheeler is kicked out by her drunk father to live with her long lost biological dad, who happens to be loaded. Not only does she have to learn how to survive the rich kid school where she's treated like the white trash she is, but she has to deal with a rude, anti-social, handsome tech geek named Seto, as well as an abusive sociopath stalker in love. Fem Joey! Fem Yugi!
1. Hidden Mansion

**Hey, ya'll! I've managed to squeeze this story in between my work because I'm naughty like that. It's a bit OC when it comes to Joey and the others, and it's pretty AU, but Seto Kaiba is, well, Seto Kaiba.**

**As always, I'll update at least once a week and this story will be finished. Let me know what you think!**

Chapter 1

I didn't know how I had ended up here. One minute I'm living in a tiny, dirty apartment where we played 'wack a'roach' every morning, and now here I was on the edge of Domino City looking at yellow Victorian mansion that could have popped out of _Pride and Prejudice_, lush green background and all. I held on to the handle of my ratty red suitcase and tried not to flinch when the very owner of this huge house, my pseudo long-lost dad, tried to take it. He lifted it up awkwardly, and I was almost surprised to see him not look like a complete goober going up the stairs and across the porch carrying it.

"I've got your room all ready for you, Josephine. I hope you like purple, because that's the last color I remember you telling me you liked."

"Yeah." Which was all I managed to say, seeing I couldn't make my throat work. I had never seen where my dad lived. Whenever I asked, he only ever told me about the weather, which I had long ago decided he was obsessed with. Not too hot. Not too cold, and a lot rainier than Nevada.

It would be an understatement to say I felt out of place when I stepped onto the red Persian rug in the foyer. Everything was made out of dark wood and out-of-a-magazine/movie décor, fit for a the princess of England or freaking Jane Austin herself, and here I was dressed in my favorite pair of ratty jeans, converse, and a City Tournament shirt.

"It should just be up here," he said, starting up the stairs. "I picked the room with a turret, with lots of windows. And you'll love the wild blackberries here, they grow everywhere!"

"So you've told me." Like a million, bajillion times.

"Denise should be home soon, so you just tell her what you like and she'll fix it up for you."

I froze, foot above a step. "You're married?" I hated the way my stomach leaped at that thought. So what if my dad was married? It wasn't like he told me anything, like that he lived in a freaking _mansion._

He seemed to flinch too. "No! No no, she's the cook. When I get busy I can forget, and she came highly recommended. Had her for a few years now."

Well, jee, I'm sorry. If I had known I just had to look in the weekly cover of 'Richest Damn People In America,' to get updates on my father, I would have.

Slightly offended by my own sarcasm and ingratitude, I stayed quiet in hopes I wouldn't say anything like it the rest of the way to my room, which was at the end of an equally lavished hall. The walls, here, were a warm yellow, and paintings and fake flowers lined the halls. I almost asked, 'who's your decorator?' But I knew I wouldn't be able to say it without sounding just a tiny bit sarcastic.

Sarcasm was the reason he left my mom, after all.

"Here we are."

I thought I had gotten over my shock in the driveway. Apparently, my dad still had more in store.

My room was a soft lavender and as big as the living room back home. A full-size bed that screamed for someone to bellyflop on it was against the far left wall, surrounded by silver and lavender curtains with green trim. On the right side, one corner was rounded into a turret and filled with huge, vintage looking windows. The sunshine outside glimmered off of a T.V. and what looked like to be a PS3 and Nintendo Wii. An empty bookshelf, with only a three or four games, stood besides the entertainment center.

My dad gestured to it, looking awkward even as he did so. "I didn't know what you liked, so I figured we could, um, go shopping together some time and pick them out. I put some of my favorites there for you to try, though, for now. Your mother also tells me you like books so we can go get some as well, that is, if none of the books in the library satisfy you, though I don't think you'd be much into computer programming and business manuals. I guess you can say I just like textbook stuff." he waited, looking at me nervously. "Did I miss anything?"

"Miss anything?" I said faintly. From the small crystal chandelier on the ceiling, to the green velvet Lovesac in the corner (which I remembered being _at least_ $1,000 in the mall), what I couldn't believe was that all of this could be mine. Somehow, though, I could only think of the miniscule room I had back home, which I shared with my sister, and where there was only enough room to walk to the closet and to the bed. Though I wanted to scream, 'where have you freaking been all my life!' I earnestly, and as inoffensively as I could, said, "Dad, you didn't have to do this. This is more than enough."

And it was. I would've been happy with a closet, because it would have been a closet away from where I had come from.

He gave me a weak smile. I saw his ears perk up with it and move wrinkles up the sides of his bald. He had dirty blond hair, like me. "Don't say that, or I won't have any excuse to take you out."

"Why would you need an excuse?" Is that why you stopped taking me out after I was ten? Because you ran out of excuses?

"Because I got too much work, and I want to be able to tell my clients to bug off for a bit without feeling guilty. Besides, video games are awesome."

The way he said that made me smile. Biggest dork alive, right there. "Can we eat sushi too?"

"Sure! Though one of these days you got to let me take you to this Mexican joint next to the college." he put on a comical look of bliss. "Mm, mm! Good stuff. And the lady there, my friend, she escaped a drug cartel and has the craziest stories, really make you grateful for what you have."

Dad had a lot of friends. Though, it wasn't hard to get Dad to call you his friend, if my memory served me right. You just had to listen to him talk and then be interesting when you talked. I wondered if I had stopped being interesting, like mom. "I'll take your word for it. Mind if I unpack?"

He looked way too relieved when I said that. "Go right ahead, though I need you to try on that uniform in the closet before dinner. You're new school doesn't like people coming in half-way through a semester."

"I don't think any school does." I muttered.

With that, he closed the door behind him, leaving me to my lavished corner of his castle. For a full five minutes I just stood there, breathing the air, smelling the faint fragrance in the air. The carpet beneath me felt squishy and thick, and I took off my shoes to feel it. It was squishy, as though several layers of foam had been packed in under the carpet, but not enough to ruin the firmness of the carpet.

Then I tipped my head back and started to cry.

My dad acted excited to have me. He seemed happy. But all I could feel towards him was confused indignation, for while I had been terrified to ask for lunch money from my parents back home, mostly because my mom was too beat down and my step father was a drunk ass. But my dad, he had had this waiting for me all along and then had the gall to pretend that we were best friends.


	2. New Kid, Again

Chapter 2

Dad drove me to my first day of school. I thought it weird, because in all the movies super rich people almost always have their kids driven by snotty nosed chaperons or butlers, but since moving here I haven't seen a single butler, and the only 'servant' dad had was the cook. Also made me wonder why he had a big house in the first place.

"It looks bigger than it really is." he said. "It's probably because I have a lot of toys. Have you tried the swimming pool yet?"

You mean the indoor, right in the freaking house swimming pool? Uh, yes, first day I got here. Freaking sweet! Especially for my moods when I wanted to feel like I was floating in nothing.

But that was besides the point. Dad was driving me to school. Forget rich, this was a first in my life, not to mention the last time I had been driven to school by anyone but the bus was when I was, what, seven?

And then he pulled in through a gate. So much freaking green stuff. Trees _everywhere._

"Here we are." he said.

I looked around and instantly started feeling like an idiot. I couldn't see it. All I saw were a bunch of nice mansions, done in that bricky, modern Greek style with lots of windows. Too squarish for my taste, if you look over the fact that they were simply too big and rich.

Then I saw the kids wearing the same uniforms, I slapped my face into the back of the front seat of my dad's nice, vintage Camero (built it himself—think of it as a rich man's toy models, super glue, paint, and all).

"Dad, what have you brought me to?"

"I thought you'd've figured it out by the uniform. It's a private school nearby, I know a few of the teachers. They're great!"

Never mind the fact that I had never stepped foot into any kind of rich school, private or otherwise, in my life. Looking at the maple double doors of what had to be the office building ahead of us, I thought of the cheap, crappy 60's style orange and brick my last school had been and snorted. Dad looked back.

"What's wrong, buddy? You nervous?"

"Please. I've been the new girl so often, the surprise has sort of worn off."

He had the tact enough to frown, and I approved. "Your mom of yours sure does move a lot. You'd think it hurt her to stay put for more than a year."

I shrugged. I didn't want to talk about it, let alone think about it. It gave me an ugly, burnt poptart feeling in my gut that made me want to throw myself into a pond somewhere.

"Hey! See that kid right there?" Dad squashed his finger up against his tinted window. "The one next to that Botticelli statue with the crazy three colored hair. That's Atem Brown, son of one of my best friends. Told him you were coming here, and they're really excited to meet you."

First, what kind of name was Atem? And I had no idea what Botticelli was, but seeing as there was only one statue within line of sight of us, I squinted at what had to be the kid he was pointing at. It wasn't hard to find him. Jeeze, how did he get his hair like that? I couldn't see very well from this distance, but he didn't look excited for anything. If anything, he just looked...bored. And, well, cute, even with the funky hair, but cute guys gave me the chills. If there's any law in this world, it is that if a man knows how handsome he is, he's eighty percent more likely to cheat. Read 'em and weep.

"I'll just drop you off by him then."

Horror trickled up into my chest. "Oh, come on, Dad,"

"It'll be great! I've already told him all about you, he's a really nice guy, you'll like him."

I groaned inwardly, but stayed quiet. If it made Dad happy—though everything made him happy. My dad was a freaking sheet of bubble wrap.

Needless to say, my neck felt hot when my thirty-seven year old father stopped the car, yelled the kid's name, and then yelled my name right next to it.

_Don't be embarrassed,_ I told myself. _They're just stupid kids who are too wrapped up in their own lives to remember some dad yelling out his kid's name to another._

That helped. Like I said, I'd been the new kid before. Teenagers. We are all terribly selfish, self-absorbed creatures.

When I got out of the car, though, and saw Atem up close, all comforting thoughts of logic rushed down to become something squirming and writhing in my gut. Aw gawd, this kid looked far too handsome up close, despite his shorter stature. This wasn't good. Worst thing in the world is for a new girl to fall for some popular guy.

Dad bid me farewell, told me he'd be out front when school was over, then turned his purple Camero around with a roar, attracting more looks. Atem Brown grinned, as though on the edge of a laugh.

I turned to him to introduce myself properly. Rather than charming me, Atem Brown frightened me. As I usually did when I was afraid, I straightened, and turned up the humorous sarcasm to the next level.

"My dad makes a great megaphone, doesn't he?"

Atem turned his grin towards me. "I guess so."

What kind of boring answer was that? "Look, you don't have to lead me around like a puppy, I've done this before, I can take care of myself. You probably have some girl waiting around to swoon in your presence anyways."

It wasn't until I registered his shocked expression that I thought to rethink what I had just said. Since it didn't sound rude or idiotic to me, I didn't care for what else it sounded like. Mr. Cuteface wasn't to be trusted anyways.

In answer he chuckled—awkwardly, like any normal boy. I was all too happy to then label Mr. Cuteface as boring. Attraction level: demoted, even with those crazy—holy crap, were his eyes purple?

"Nah, though thanks."

"Thanks for what?"

He grew more flustered. "Didn't you just call me attractive?"

"Well, sure, but you're not my type. I'm lesbian." His eyebrows shot up and I smirked. "Just kidding, just kidding. I'm straight as a post. Anyways, you don't have to show me around if you're busy. I don't think my dad realizes sometimes that other people have lives too."

"Oh, no, it's okay. Your dad's a good friend of my dad, and he's told me a lot about you."

I sighed. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

"It's nothing bad."

"I don't care, I just don't want to hear how inaccurate he is." I straightened and readjusted my book bag, which caught a bit on my jacket sleeve. I felt like a freaking anime schoolgirl chick in this stupid pleated skirt. At least the uniforms didn't look too bad. "If you're set on wasting your time, lead the way, slave. Oh, by the way, how did you get your hair like that? Talk about daring."

He chuckled awkwardly again. Ugh, I hated the awkward chuckle. It was something my mom's second husband did _all the time._

He gestured me besides him and we made our way up the way too pretty sidewalk. We seemed to be aiming for the regal looking office building I had noticed before. As we walked, a few kids seemed to notice us and pointed us out to their friends. I rolled my eyes at this. Could they be anymore obvious?

"So," Atem said, "um, why'd you come to live with your dad? We knew he had a daughter but, ugh, well, I can understand the whole custody problem. Did your mom just decide to give him a turn or something?"

I shrugged. "Nah. Just some messed up stuff at home."

His eyebrows did the fly up thing again. "Messed up?"

"You know, a gentleman wouldn't pry into something that obviously wasn't his business, no offense."

He flinched, apologized, and looked far too put off for my liking. So I added, "Become my best friend and I'll be happy to tell you all the juicy details."

He did the awkward chuckle again. "I'm sorry for asking."

I flapped my hands pathetically, "Aw, jeeze, don't be like that. Honestly, I wasn't offended at all, and I don't care about telling you, I just don't want to sound emo or anything."

"I guess I can understand that." How, I don't know, but at least he wasn't looking like a shrinking kitten anymore. "You look a lot like him, you know."

"You mean bald?" I stroked my messy dirty blond hair. "Why, thank you."

Awkward chuckle. "You know I don't mean that."

Gawd, this guy was boring. But it just made me happier. I didn't want him to be attractive.

The office building was just as lavished on the inside. I couldn't help but wonder what the heck the secretaries did in here that made it so important to have all this...well...rich person room. And was that a sixty inch screen I saw over there?

A nice blond, thin lady at the front introduced me, gave me my schedule and a map (the one's you have to have the teachers sign and everything, I guess rich kid school still work the same). I expected Atem to leave after that, since I had a map and everything, but he stayed there, looking pleasant, handsome, and with way crazy red, black, and bleach blond hair. He followed with me, making small talk about how I liked it here, what the last place I lived in was like, the usual questions, until I was able to find my first class. He couldn't understand why I thought it was funny to see ordinary desks inside, though.

"Well, I expected fancy armchairs or something, but..." the other students, including the teacher, were staring at me. "Oh, never mind. Cya Atem."

"Oh, this is my first class too."

"Whaddya know. Well pardon me, age before beauty."

He did the now familiar awkward chuckle. "You don't know how old I am."

"I'm omniscient. Like God." They were still staring. Atem, at least, was using his legs now and making his way in to a desk.

"Um, there isn't like assigned seating, is there?"

"Nope."

"All right, then."

And I tried to ignore the surprised look he had on his face when I turned around and picked a desk on the other side of the classroom. Best way to find interesting friends was to meet people, right? And Atem probably wouldn't like someone like me anyways. He seemed the type to want to stay under radar, with that weird awkward chuckle of his. Though, if he ever changed his mind, I would be cool with that. I wasn't _really_ omniscient after all.

A few of the students were still staring at me. I met their eyes and waved happily. They seemed creeped out. Guess they wouldn't be my friends either. If there was anything I learned from moving so often (step dad always escaping the debt collectors, the coward), it is that birds of a feather flock together. Best to be yourself if you want to get the best kinds of friends.

When the bell finally rang, though, no one was sitting next to me. I tried to ignore the squirmy instinct in my gut to be embarrassed, or depressed. Atem kept glancing back at me, as though he were concerned—or confused. Probably confused.

The teacher stood up—looking like a business woman out of a top of the line Hollywood movie, with her pencil skirt and designer blouse—introduced me briefly and, surprisingly, informed the class who my dad was. There were a few whispers, who knew what about, and then she started the class without much adu. I had had the fortune to be told what book we were studying in English ahead of time and, being gifted as a fast reader, had perused through it over the weekend. _Crime and Punishment_ by Theodore Dostoyevsky. Definitely not something I'd read back in the old public school. I liked it. Disturbing double-ax murderers, prostitutes, psychological trauma. What more could you ask for?

I ended up in a better mood after class. I had been able to answer some questions and involve myself in discussion. She looked surprised that I had read ahead, but pleased, probably because I wasn't proving to be a complete idiot.

Outside, Atem met me again, this time with others. One was a tall kid who had the weirdest fashion statement of gelling all his hair into a long point on the front of his head, though he showed a hint of muscle beneath his uniform (okay, maybe more than a hint). The other was a slender, long legged beautiful girl with short brown hair and perfect makeup. I had to force myself not to stare. Were those eyelashes real? Did she have a freaking pro do it?

"Josephine, I want you to meet my friends. This is Tristan," the black boy nodded, "and this is Tea."

"Love your name." I said, and the needle-head kid grinned. "Sounds tough, maybe Russian."

"Celtic, actually." he said.

"Well, can I pretend it's Russian anyways?"

He laughed. Unlike Atem's it was full on and throaty. "I like you. Sure, whatever, my name's Russian."

"Nice to meet you." Tea put out her hand. I felt a bit put off by the sense she was pushing herself through, but took her hand happily.

"Nice to meet you too! You're gorgeous! I've never seen make up done so perfectly!"

Tristan laughed again, and the sound made me feel warm. "Dude, where do chicks like you come from? Aw man."

Tea's smile twitched. "Um, thanks."

"No really! I didn't embarrass you did I? I'm sorry, I kind of just spout whatever comes to my mind." I smiled at her weakly, doing my best to look apologetic.

"Apparently, Josephine likes to go by Joey, and she's a lesbian." said Atem.

I looked at him with surprise. Maybe he wasn't so boring after all. "You wish."

"I'm just saying what you told me."

"That was to give you fair warning that you're not my type. I can assure you I like boys—a lot."

Tristan shook his head. "That's it, I'm keeping you around from now on."

"What video games do you like?" I asked.

He looked startled. "What?"

"Games? Beep beep, _Mario, Tetris, Mortal Combat,_ I can be quite violent."

"No way, you play that stuff?"

"All the cool people do."

"Okay, okay, calm down, we still have next period," said Tea, looking a bit miffed. I tried to pull back my mouth. The jittering in my stomach sometimes made it run. I guess I still did get nervous when going to a new school. Who knew? I tried to ignore the nervous fear that I had made a fool of myself and just smiled. If I made a fool of myself, who cared? No one would probably remember it. No one really noticed me anyways—self absorbed teenagers after all.

Atem's awkward chuckles had finally given way to something that sounded more real, though silent, and he was smiling wildly. I wished he wouldn't. It made him look more dashing than ever, almost unbearably so, and I turned my head to avoid looking at him.

Kids were still pointing and staring as they passed me in the hall. I almost instinctively rolled my eyes. How immature. What they thought didn't matter. They wouldn't remember me anyways. They probably were too worried about what I thought of them, then what they thought of me.

"What's your next class?" asked Atem.

"Yeah, you better be in with me. Macroeconomics is the pits." said Tristan.

I looked down at my schedule. Even as I recited out loud that I had gym next and Tristan groaned, I wondered what kind of freak high school taught macroeconomics. Human Anatomy was next for me, and only Tea had that, so she offered to show the way for me (even though I had a map).

She was quiet, and I felt a sort of tenseness around her, so I tried to contain myself, despite my supposed nervousness. When we reached our class she sat down in her seat without a word to me and, since the chairs besides her were already taken, I awkwardly floated away to the edge of the classroom. Hey, despite my borderline arrogant confidence, I had my lines too.

I was just examining the floating organs in jars next to me and wondering if I would barf when someone cleared their throat loudly next to me. A tall guy, with bright blue eyes, high cheek bones, and a clean cut mop of thick brown hair scowled down at me. Instantly, I felt irritated.

"What?"

"You're in my seat." he said.

"No one told me they were assigned."

"They're not. I just like it."

I blinked. "Huh." Asshole.

He continued to glare at me. So, I shrugged, picked my book bag up, and moved around the corner so I was sitting adjacent to him. Best not to start a fight on my first day of school. He still glared at me, as though expecting me to move farther away, but when I didn't he just looked more grumpy and sat down. Without another word he flipped out his laptop, a sleek, expensive looking thing, and booted it up.

"Why are you so attached to this seat in particular?" I asked.

"Because I like it," When I continued to look at him, he glanced up, then back down at the screen. "I can work undisturbed by idiots."

Oh yeah, I got that. He meant idiots like 'me.' No mistaking that voice. But, of course-

"What are you working on?" I peered around to his screen. All I could see was a blank page full of code. I recognized it. "Hey, is that C++?"

"No." he growled. "Do you mind?"

"Sorry." but even though I sunk back into my chair, I fidgeted. The class had started, but the paunchy looking Anatomy teacher was still busy setting up his presentation. So, as I got out a pen and notebook, I asked, "What are you programming?"

"I'm scripting."

"Yeah, I got that, what is it?"

"Stuff."

I snorted. "Wow. Let's pray it's good stuff."

"Stop talking. You're annoying me."

The open hostility of this man amazed me. Was he liked this towards everyone?

That earned him his second 'asshole' sticker from Joey.

I was distracted from thinking about him when the Anatomy teacher opened his presentation with a rather graphic picture of open brain surgery. I reflexively closed my eyes and tried to ignore the squirmyness in my gut that accompanied the sensation of light headedness. When I opened my eyes to take notes, it was to be distracted by the fact that everyone had a laptop open, just like the jerk next me, and from what I could see over their shoulders, I was the only one taking notes the old fashion way.

Then I caught sight of another graphic image of some organ, not greyed by formaldehyde, but pink and bloody, and preoccupied myself with scribbling whatever he was saying.

"If you can't stand the sight of viscera, why did you take this class?"

I looked over, but the tall grump still had his eyes on the screen, typing away.

"I think it's fascinating. How the human body works, that is. I mean, PE is awesome as class, but they said I had to take a science class, so..."

The guy snorted, and continued typing. He didn't say anything else for the rest of class, and I made sure to breathe slowly through my nose if I had to glance up to make a diagram. Yes, it was torturous. Yes the class gave me all sorts of uncomfortable feelings, but I was strangely fascinated at the same time.

At the end of class, he packed up his laptop and left without so much as a good-bye-not that I expected it or anything. It was only then did I realize the weird looks everyone was giving me, or more specifically, the 70 cent notebook from Walmart in my hands. I noticed a girl whispering something to a guy next to her, who chuckled, and covertly met my eyes. Feeling my face grow hot, I slipped my notebook back into my bag, looking forward to the end of school more than usual.

Tea ignored me when I filed out behind her. I didn't see any sign of Atem or Tristan for the rest of the morning, and when lunch came around, I had withdrawn into myself so much that I hardly noticed the stares anymore. When I stepped into the cafeteria and saw something that looked like a confusing cross between a buffet and a restaurant, the thought of having to figure out my way through it made me lose my appetite and, instead, I backed out and left down the hall. I had passed the library early. It was there I headed now.

Sure, I was confident and outgoing. Sure, I didn't need my very own posse to feel comfortable. I was my very own best friend, and I was fine with that. In fact, the empty hallways made me feel better than I had all day. At the same time, people distracted you from depressing thoughts, and the thoughts that were going through my head carried run down images of that crap apartment and my step father with bulging, furious eyes.

Then I opened the door to the library. The sight I saw blew away the memories of desert like a wave of magic, and I felt my jaw dropped.

A place like this existed in Domino? Forget a high school.

The library was two stories connected by twisting, metal staircases like pillars, and sturdy, rolling ladders leaned against bookshelves from floor to ceiling. Windows that spanned both floors flaked both ends of the library that I could see, and beyond what I could see...the thought made my heart leap and my cheeks hurt from beaming.

I was in love.

The librarian didn't even look up at me as I passed through the detectors and up a flight of stairs. I didn't care where I was going or knew what I was looking for, only that I had never been surrounded by so many beautiful books in my life. I walked down aisles of non-fiction, shelves of fantasy, rows of science fiction, corners of romance—I even found a section of manga that made my eyes pop. I had only once been able to be patron to a library with manga. I happily grabbed a few first books of series I've never heard of, and then continued on my journey, occasionally letting out a soft peel of laughter for the joy of it.

I reached the end of the top floor and looked down the last aisles to see the thick binders of programming books, lit by the light of an unseen window. Unable to believe my luck, I trotted down, manga to my chest.

Hands picking at the thick binders, I froze, smelling cinnamon and the too sweet scent of icing before I saw him.

Mr. Asshole, tall as ever and with that perfectly cut mop of brown hair, was glaring at me, laptop at his fingertips, and his lunch next to him on the mahogany table. He looked at me, and I looked at him.

"Why are you over here?" he asked, as though I had purposely invaded his personal bubble just to bug him.

I scowled. "To see these books, duh. Just go back to your script and leave me alone."

I tried to go back to my programming browsing, managing to find a manual on Ruby that I had been eyeballing on Amazon for over a month and unable to believe my luck, but I could still feel his glare on me.

"Do you know who I am?"

I rolled my eyes, the manual thick and heavy in my arm. "No, am I suppose to?"

He caught sight of the manual in my hand and snickered. "You don't even know what that does."

"That's what _reading _is for." And since my bicep was starting to protest, I shuffled over and plopped it down on the mahogany table along with my manga. He glared at me, and I sighed, purposely pulling out a chair.

"Look, you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone, that's all I want. Deal?"

He contemplated me with the look of someone trying to dig out a lie from a spies's face. Then he shrugged, took a bite out of what looked like, well, a rich man's cupcake before going back to his typing. The smell of his sub, with fresh sliced turkey and cheese, made my stomach grumble and my head protest that it needed glucose to work, but I opened my hulking _Ruby_ book and started the introduction. By the time I had hit the first chapter, my 70 cent Walmart notebook was out and I was scribbling away the notes on the page. Already my mind was racing with ideas of what I could create with this new way of command.

"Are you one of those scholarship students?"

I looked up, unable to contemplate what he had said until I made room amidst the code in my mind.

"No." I said faintly, confused. I only got grades good enough to not be called stupid, really.

"Then what's with that?" he pointed to my notebook. It looked particularly garish next to his shiny, top of the line Mac.

"Uhh...what's wrong with it?" I looked on the cover and the back, thinking that maybe someone doodled an insult on it while I wasn't looking. I had just bought it before I came here, and had been raised not to waste things.

"Everyone here is required to have a computer of one sort of another for classes. Besides, that thing looks like it could have cost a buck, that doesn't look good on your parents."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and at the same time I could. I sighed and put my notebook back. "My dad doesn't need me to look good for him, and if it's such a problem I'll get one later. This works just fine."

He made a noise in his throat, as though disgusted, and the tapping of key continued.

My stomach growled. Loudly. The guy's tapping stopped, and my ears grew hot.

"Are you sick?" he asked, as though ready to be insulted if I was.

"Good crap, no, I'm just hungry, so please don't make me drag this huge thing somewhere else to have some quiet, I'm not in the mood."

"There's food in the cafeteria."

"I'm not stupid."

"Did you get lost?" he sounded amused.

"No, I found it, just didn't feel like going in."

"Are you anorexic? You don't look like it."

I slammed my book close and glared at him. "I just wanted to be alone on my first day of school, okay? Freaking rich kids keep staring at me and whispering just because they're own lives are so boring and stupid they have to make fun of the new kid to amuse themselves, and it was bugging me."

"You better get use to it, then, because it doesn't change once you're a rich veteran either." he hesitated, fingers over his keyboard. Just as I was shifting to get ready to stand, he did something unexpected. He picked up a half of his sandwich, then slid over the plate with the other half towards me. Then, he got back to typing with one hand as though nothing had happened. I blinked and picked up the sandwich. It looked and smelled better up close.

"Uh...thanks."

He said nothing, so I dug in. I had never tasted a sandwich so good in my life and just kept myself from moaning in pleasure. Figuring we had come to some sort of truce, I went back to reading, munching, and occasionally taking notes.

When the bell rang, we got up, gathered our stuff, and though I said 'Cya,' he just lifted a hand as he was leaving. Then I realized I had yet to check out the manga and programming book. With an 'eep!' I rushed down stairs to get it done before class.


	3. A Frightening Friend

**Yo, readers! How are ya? Liking it so far? Let me know. I've updated three times this week, so you may have to wait till next week for another chapter, buuuuut I'm an awfully nice person, so who knows! Just keep in touch. **

**Meanwhile, I'll scratch my head with my foot. I can do that, did you know? Killer flexible. Get it from me mum. **

Chapter 3

I managed to have my last class with both Atem and Tristan (Integrated Technology), but I ended up getting so caught up in the work the teacher assigned for us to do (as well as the speed and fanciness of the lab's computers), to do much talking other than the occasional sarcastic joke. I did get to watch Tristan get yelled at for throwing a paper plane across the classroom.

After school, Dad waited for me right where he dropped me off, his vintage purple Camero looking out of place along the line of black limos. I couldn't help a smile breaking out when he honked and waved at me. Even if he did hide the fact that he was loaded from me, nothing else had changed about him.

"How was school, buddy? Atem treat you well?"

I threw my bag in the back seat and made sure my skirt wasn't in the door before closing it. "Oh, yeah, he was really nice."

"Sweet kid," he said, as though Atem was ten. "He has some funny tastes when it comes to hair color, but I think it's to help make himself look taller. You don't mind if we go out in your school uniform, do you? Or would you rather we drop home first?"

"Would it be too much to stop home first?" Until I peeled off the germs of school, I wouldn't be able to relax.

"Wouldn't have offered if it was. Hold on tight, this baby's got some juice!"

But, being my dad, he didn't take off at the speed of light, crashing over limos on the way. He calmly pulled out, revved the engine a bit to attract some stares, then pulled out of the school ground whooping like he was sixteen again. I didn't know whether to feel embarrassed for him or laugh hysterically, and ended up somewhere in between.

At the house, he offered to wait for me as I dashed in to throw on a t-shirt and jeans. I wasn't until I was outside, next to his car, did I start to wonder if my dad would be insulted by the shirt with bleach blotches at the hem and the jeans with the backs hems worn off because they were longer than my legs. Then I realized that, well, this was my dad, who had just driven up to limo lane in a forty something year old purple car and slid into the front seat without another thought.

"So, what are we going shopping for?"

"Well, there's that gaming date we had-"

"You know you don't have to, right?"

"I want to! You know when the last time was that I browsed videogames? I've been so busy, I just want to go in and smell the software. Good to know the competition, right? I also just remembered your school requires a laptop, so I figured we can go pick one of those out as well."

Confused and curious, I asked, "I know you do something computers for your job," he was always on one or had a palm pilot nearby when I was little, "but, what is you do exactly?"

"Ah, well, a little CNN machine programming here, CAD programs there, oh, and automobile main systems."

"You program the computers in cars?"

"Oh, yeah, didn't you know? I even put one in this old puppy." he tapped the steering wheel of his Camero. "We've worked with Ford, Chevy—most of the American manufacturers, mind you, but sometimes I'm called overseas to have a meeting with the programmers of Mitsubishi and Honda as well."

And from there he proceeded to talk my ears off about how he had been hosted in China once, and that the little Chinese man who had been assigned as his guide (and could eat him under the table easily, despite being half my dad's size), had once mistaken my dad's request for entertainment and taken him to a brothel. At the horrified look on my face, my dad busted out laughing, and reassured me that he had been just as horrified. He tried to show how he had mimed a game of pool while driving, and I chuckled. At the same time, the same uncomfortable pressure in my gut smoldered. Why hadn't he ever told me about this? In five years, he could at least managed to call me, couldn't he? When I was little, he had lived nearby and had often taken me to play at places my mother could never afford. Then my mother divorced her second husband and he moved all the way up here, to northern Domino, and a three day drive from where my mother had lived at the time.

And while I struggled to take care of Mom, handle her new husband (whom I couldn't understand her attraction to him), he had been here, programming, traveling the world, forgetting that somewhere in the desert he had a daughter.

We pulled up to a computer store I didn't recognized. It was big, blocky, and had a nerdy sounding name.

"This here is my Disneyland." he said as the Camero died down with a purr.

Inside it looked more like a warehouse, but there were shelves upon shelves of hardware I hardly recognized. While I did have a hobby for programming, growing up as poor as I was, I simply used whatever computer I could find and was far more interested in the code itself than in the hardware I used. I knew enough, however, to appreciate the laptop my dad fingered out for me after walking down aisles and aisles of boxed up laptops.

But, though a bubble of happiness pressed against my lungs at the fact that my dad and I shared such similar interests, it only made me wonder why he couldn't have bothered to get to know me when we were so alike. At least, bothered to know me after I turned ten.

"This is the same brand I use," I just couldn't get over the fact that it was shiny and new, and not a ten year old pheonix that frequently overheated and complained at being made to work. I had left my old, hand-me-down, thrift store special desktop in the cochroach apartment, and it was probably being torn apart right now by my step dad for parts.

"At least it's not a Mac," I said.

"Don't like Macs?" he asked.

"Yeah. I don't like working with the kernel operating system. Though PC is more prone to viruses because of it, I like the open OS better."

He blinked at me, for a moment looking surprised at my reasoning, then smiled and put the laptop back.

"In that case, maybe we can find this brand that already has a partitioned operating system, with one that's even more accessible, so when you're off the internet you can play with it."

I stared. "They make those? Ready made?"

"Here at the Wheeler's personal Disneyland, they do."

Since it was for school, it was easier for me to ignore the price tag, even though it was my dad who was buying it. Still, it made me uncomfortable. I would have preferred it if I had been able to buy it with my own means, but having no money to speak of, it was out of my hands and I had no right to complain.

Afterwards, we drove over to a humble Gamestop in a strip market nearby, where my dad finally let me be to hover over the PC games in the corner. He was, of course, far from quiet and made funny appreciative noises at every third or forth game or so until he started to attract the attention of the store clerks. When one unsuspecting clerk drew near to see if he could be a service, he was entrapped into a conversation with my talkative dad—or more like my dad talking at him when he proved not to have an interesting, foreign, or dramatic background.

When he finally remembered that he had spawn hanging out over the Wii and PS games, he waved the relieved and amused clerk good-bye and came over.

"Picked out any good ones?"

I flinched, "Wait, I can have some?" I nervously fiddled with the _Duel Monsters_ game I was holding. Sure, I liked to duel with the old fashion cards, but since I was use to playing alone..."How many can I have?"

"Let's start with five," he said, "don't want to get more than you'll play this year, and you do still have school after all—also, it's not too great on the brain to play all day. I'm going to have to limit you to two hours a day."

I beamed. "Five? Really?" That was about how much I had owned in my life, after Dad vanished, that is.

"Sure."

When we got home, I was all too happy to curl up in my still plastic smelling lovesac and pop in one. Dad watched for a moment, commenting on the graphics and the finesse of the physics engine, before excusing himself to work. Once he was out of the doorway, I paused to take a breath and finally admit to myself what I had been feeling all day: like I was being bought, or my forgiveness was. It wasn't a nice feeling, especially after all the trouble money caused my parents back home—no, that wasn't my home anymore. This was.

After stretching, and deciding that I might as well be grateful for this random heaven I had been blessed with, no matter the intentions behind it, I unpaused and continued my RPG adventure.

After a dinner with my Dad, with Denise eating a ways away from us and smiling at our thanks, I went upstairs with my new laptop to do some homework, as well as a little project of mine that had been bubbling around in my head from reading the _Ruby_ manual earlier. Before I could do so, though, the cell phone in my pocket, an old beat up pink one I had had service on and off for over the last five years, buzzed in my pocket. Dad said nothing, for once, as I walked into the living room to answer it.

"Hey, mom," I said.

"Hey, Joey, I've been missing you so much! How was school?"

"Rich." I said vaguely. "Though I love the library, it has a whole row of manga, can you believe it?"

"What's manga again?"

I sighed. "Just some comic books."

"Oh! I think I remember you reading those. Have you met any friends? Seen any cute boys you like?"

I sighed. Married three times and almost thirty-seven, the boy crazy flirt from her high school days still peeked out now and then. Sometimes I wondered where we were related in that department.

"Sure," I said, though when she pressed me for details, I didn't have much to give. I didn't like cute boys, really. Mom always seemed to point them out before I even noticed, just so she could make believe with herself that they had the hots for her geeky daughter. Sometimes I wondered if she wanted to play make believe through me, but that thought gave me the creeps so bad, it usually didn't stay longer than a second in my head. Besides, my mom was just being her usual, weird, funny self, not some flirt. She was trying so hard to stay married to the gambling asshole, after all.

That night, after finishing homework I thought would be harder, I sat in bed before the bright screen of my computer, typing one of the first program codes I ever learned. I was in my own world, a cool, peaceful place, like the surface of a pool that hasn't been touched. Commands, numbers, key words, all blinked inside my mind. They were cool to touch. Safe. Without bulging eyes or a need to constantly be moving. They had no cares, and their existence still in the process of creation.

Then I closed the window and pressed the spacebar. I felt the CPU whirr under my fingers. A blotch of color appeared on the screen and wiggled across it to nibble with a misshapen mouth on the e-webs browser. I frowned, stopped the program, and reopened the script. It only took a minute to find the problem—a few, actually—and I fixed them with clean taps. When my blotchy, electric blue program danced across the screen, I smiled, then pulled out the Ruby manual from my backpack, along with my notebook, which told me which page I wanted.

A few quick taps and my blotch began to take shape.

When I finally looked at the clock, it was midnight, and I felt disgusted with myself. A lack of sleep made everything worse and would make school hard, I should have been keeping a better track of time.

A chat window popped up from my email browser. I frowned. I thought I had closed that. I clicked on it, then froze.

**hi. what you doing up so late?**

I shouldn't reply. My heart was thumping loudly in my chest. I had promised myself I simply wouldn't reply. He wasn't good, he wasn't. I moved to my mouse.

**I haven't heard from you, I've been worried, did your step dad-**

I shut down the instant messenger program and went to turn off my laptop. The instant messenger window popped up again.

**-take the internet away? Did I say something wrong?**

I slapped the laptop closed. Hands sweating, I put my laptop onto the nightstand then curled underneath my fluffy bed covers. Outside I could hear crickets playing to the night and the occasional whoosh of a car passing in the distance.

My heart still pounded in my chest minutes after I had closed the laptop. I had been so tired before, but now I felt wide awake. I put my face to my pillow.

Why was I so afraid? Weren't we best friends, me and this guy in the chat window? Wasn't this cruel what I was doing?

Something horrible clawed in my chest and up to my throat, reminding me how starkly alone I still was.


	4. Friends, Enemies, and Conrad

**Yo, home skillets! I'm finding that writing stuff for other people isn't very fun, even if they do pay you, so this story is my rebellion. It's all me, no one else, although, of course, I don't won Yugioh. **

**Tell me what you think. I love hearing it. And stick around! I'll be updating in a few days-maybe even tomorrow. **

Chapter 4

Atem was waiting for me in the same spot when my dad dropped me off in the morning. His exotic colored eyes, rebellious hair, and angular shaped face had only gotten cuter over night, and I found myself keeping a good distance between us.

"Sleep good?"

"I guess. Had a freaky dream about becoming a porpoise, but it was all right."

He laughed the awkward laugh. The one that would have fit better with a scrawny D&D dweeb. At least, that's what I told myself.

Tristan and Tea met up with us, but once more Tea was oddly quiet. Tristan was just as talkative as the day before, talking about surprisingly normal things, like realty TV shows he had seen the night before, with Atem doing his awkward turtle chuckle.

And then he started mentioning how he wanted to throw a party at his place and went off mentioning the kind of things he'd have there. Though I already knew I didn't want to go (parties were bad news), I could help but gape at what he could afford, and just off of his own allowance.

"You get four hundred a week?"

"Yeah, sad, isn't it? I hear some guy named Duke gets- "

"Four hundred?"

Now all of them were giving me strange looks, and Tristan was starting to tilt his chin down in embarrassment.

"Look, my parents are trying to encourage me to earn my own money-"

"I don't get anything!" I blurted out. "I mean, sometimes my mom slipped me a five dollar bill, but..."

Their faces were changing. It didn't look amazed anymore. Just disbelieving.

"You don't get an allowance?" Atem asked.

Tea, however, snorted.

"Don't act so surprised," she said. "Only her father's well off, she was raised by her mother."

Their attention turned to her. I, however, had a distinct sense of foreboding. How did she know about me? It wasn't like my family life was posted on the internet. And the look on her face didn't look compassionate or kind. I couldn't quite read just what it was, but it was there, and it made my stomach feel weird.

"Well, I knew that she was raised by her mom, but," Atem looked back at me, his eyebrows puckered up in pity. "You got no allowance? Was your mom abusive?"

I laughed out loud at this. "Of course not. A lot of my friends didn't get allowance."

Tristan and Atem exchanged looks. Tea, however, just smiled.

"Where you, um, poor?" Even though it was obvious he was trying not to be insulting, the way Tristan whispered it, as though someone had died, was insulting enough.

Yeah, I was poor. Some years were better than others, but this one, with the move to our cockroach apartment, had been one of the worst due to my step father's unfortunate addiction to gambling. I recalled a week of bread for school lunch and grimaced. No. I was so not telling them any of that.

"I guess poor compared to you." I looked back and forth between them. "What? I'm not damaged or anything."

"Is that why you moved in with your dad? Because your mom couldn't afford to take care of you anymore?"

"Of course not." I said, before I realized that it might have been smarter to say yes.

Before they could ask again, though, with their strange disregard for privacy, in my opinion, the bell rang and we separated for class. Atem ambled behind me as I trotted ahead.

"We're going to be late!" I called over my shoulder.

"Running's against the rules."

"What-"

And then I collided with someone's shoulder and jumped to the side to catch my balance. They, however, toppled to the floor as though a ram had hit them. As I stared down at the chintz like, tiny, and I mean TINY girl, with bleach blond bangs and long black hair tipped with purple, I wanted to laugh. It had hardly been enough to leave a bruise, if that. Not to mention it was just funny to find someone else, and a girl at that, who had the same weird taste in hair dye as Atem. I reached out, still smiling.

"Sorry about that, but you didn't have to drop to the floor like that."

She peeked out under her bangs with huge, jewel-like amethyst eyes, saw me, then took my hand. She kept her gaze to her feet.

"Um, sorry..."

"You're not hurt or anything, right?"

Atem walked past, a strange look on his face as he watched us. "They're closing the doors."

I squeaked, pivoted on the spot with a 'good-bye,' and slipped into class with the teacher's glare on my back.

This time, I sat with Atem, who seemed all too happy to have me.

"That girl's not going to sue me for knocking into her, is she?" Because I had just remembered that rich people could do that.

"No, you're lucky. That's one of the scholarship students. Besides," he turned his face away, "Yugi's harmless. I don't think she'd sue someone even if she did have the money—and good reason on top of that."

The term run a bell in my head. That tall computer guy had asked me if I was one. "What's a scholarship student?"

"Someone who tested into school because they're too poor to pay the tuition. It's really hard to do that, though."

Classes went by, Atem did his awkward chuckle, Tristan invited me over to the boy's dorms for Super Smash that weekend (where the boys of parents who lived far away stayed), and Tea made her little comments that weren't necessarily rude towards me, but as though I was made of cellophane. I gave witty sarcastic quibbles, made a fool of myself with being confident, and made it a point to not care what they thought.

In Anatomy I sat in the seat I did before, and the kid sat in his usual place. He didn't look at me, didn't say hi, and I felt comfortable enough to not say anything to him either. It wasn't a rude silence. Just one saying that we had a truce. Today, when the lights turned off, I too had a glowing screen with the rest of the class. This time, however, when I needed to ignore the gory pictures, I would focus on the code I was forming in a side window.

Lunch came along, and once more I made my way to the cafeteria. It was loud, busy, and super refined. I couldn't see how I could eat in there without feeling I needed to remember extra forks or something stupid like that. So, taking a sandwich I had asked Denise to make for me as a snack, and also if I was intimidated again (I knew myself too well), I headed to the library.

The tall kid was there again, tapping away on his laptop. I sat down without a word, took out my new laptop and the Ruby manual, and got to work trying to bring more character, more definition, into the program that still bounce about screen in confusion.

"It's nice to know you've graduated from your dollar store book."

"What are you talking about?" I said, bringing up my Walmart notebook for him to see without leaving the page. "My computer's busy at the moment."

"Hmm." he said.

And that's all we talked about for the rest of lunch, eating our sandwiches, typing away at our computers. The hour passed by peacefully, and I almost forget he was there.

Right before the bell rang, though, he spoke.

"What are you making?"

I didn't answer right away in order to finish a line.

"A dragon."

His typing stopped. "Ah."

"Were you being a creep and peeking at my screen?"

"You were being obvious and tilting it right towards me."

"Creep."

"Then what does that make you? Weren't you commenting on my C++ yesterday?"

"I was just making sure you weren't looking up porn in class."

That shut him up, and I had a moment of peace to finish fixing up the motions of my dragon's head before the bell rang, it was time to finish the stupid parade of teenage angst and drama.

School seemed usual for the next period, Math (which I hated), or rather, pre-calculus. Rich kids whispering about how I came from Vegas, how I use to work at Hooters, how I got kicked out of my school for sleeping with so and so, how, no, I was a sexy dancer—had to with a huge white-trash ass like that—just, you know, uncreative things. And yes, thank you, I already knew my butt was big, but at least I wasn't overweight along with it.

Until, in Gym, which was had the genders separated and they had expensive, shining exercise equipment and a Olympic sized indoor pool, a girl took the treadmill next to me, and I recognized the tiny doll-like girl I had knocked over earlier. Like all strangers, I acted like my dad, smiled, and said hi in a strange way.

"Yollo!"

She pushed the button to start on the trainer's orders with the rest of the girls, and started to jog along side me.

"I'm sorry if I frightened you earlier." she said. Her voice reminded me of a mouse.

"Oh, it's cool. Why did you, anyways? Bad sense of balance?"

She shook her head slyly. "No. Practice." she glanced around her, then leaned in. "I'm auditioning for the school play."

I grinned. "School play? Didn't know rich folks still did plays. What is it? King Midas? Real gold included?"

She giggled and shook her head, tri-colored pigtails bouncing off her shoulders with each step.

"Romeo and Juliet."

"Oh, well, that's original. Only the school play used in every fanfiction on the planet."

She snapped an excited grin at me. "You read fanfiction?"

"On my off days."

"What about?"

The gym teacher, a slim guy who looked like he belonged in a gym personally training Mariah Carey (which he probably did on his spare time), shouted at us, and I quickly picked up my pace on the treadmill. I puffed as I ran, feeling that said white-trash ass weighing me down. I thanked God in my heart for making gym class gender segregated.

"What's your name?" I puffed.

"Yugi." she puffed back.

Of course, I should have remembered that. Atem had told me, hadn't he?

"Josephine, but I go by Joey."

"Kind of an...interesting nickname."

"Yeah, I know, it's a guys name, but it just feels right, you know?"

The gym teacher's voice barked out across the room, "Less talking more running, girls, or you're going to get another lap! Do you want flabby thighs?"

I stumbled a bit to snort in a laugh. My thighs would only ever be flabby, and I didn't care to loose my boobs to change them. I even had cellulite all down the backs of my legs, but you didn't see me complaining.

Integrated Technologies was the same as the day before. Joking with Tristan and the quieter Atem as we worked away on our desktops, practicing our typing skills, learning secretarial programs, researching the webs and how to find the information we want. I could see a trend growing.

Dad picked me up. Atem waved me off. I ate a snack, chatted with Denise (which wasn't much, as she mostly hmm'd and agreed with me), then opened my computer to finish my pet project, emphasis on the pet.

A chat window popped open. Something cold and hot ran down my spine.

**Joey, talk to me, please, I love you.**

I snapped the computer shut, eyes burning, heart pounding. I left it on my bed and went to read some of my manga from the school library. It was more difficult than usual to get caught up in the story, and I even went as far as to get as far away from the computer as possible by going downstairs to lounge on one of my dad's leather sofa's to read.

He was down there, typing away on his own laptop, which looked like it could be the twin of mine. He said hi, invited me to sit down, and then we both happily and comfortably fell into our own little worlds, separate from each other.

I took an extra long bath in the bathroom connected to my room. I had a thing for bathrooms, and figured a bubble bath in the fine jet tub would relax me enough to think straight, to do the smart thing, but the aching, lonely clawing made me feel like something inside of me was bleeding.

I was being cruel. I hadn't even explained to him.

I shouldn't have installed that instant messenger, I should have just deleted it. My old friends rarely talked to me anyways. I had long ago learned that, once I moved, it was out of sight, out of mind. Teenagers really were too busy with their own lives.

But he hadn't...he had said he loved me. And I abandoned him. I had been cruel, and that was why he did those things-

My mind screeched to a halt at the memories and I flung my face into the bath, shaking, trying not to cry out.

I didn't want to talk to him. It hurt. But I wanted to talk to him. I didn't want to be this lonely anymore.

I got out, dried off, rubbed lotion on me slowly, tried to ignore my image in the mirror, braided my long hair.

The laptop was waiting for me on my bed.

Dad came in, said good-night, giving me an awkward one armed hug, told me he wouldn't be home tomorrow due to his work and to expect Denise to pick me up, then closed the door after him.

The sky was beautiful outside my tower windows. I got the notion I was like Rapunzel and shook my head furiously. What kind of stupid nonsense was that? My life was freaking fantastic! What more could I ask for? I had great food to eat, a school that would give me endless opportunities for my future and that most kids didn't even dare to dream about going, a gorgeous library filled with manga and computer languages...

I was crying. I hugged myself, aching, moaning, crying.

And though I knew better, though I knew it could only make it worse, I went to my laptop.

The chat window was still open, waiting for me.

A whole rant had been left for me to read, bemoaning his own loneliness, begging for forgiveness, passively accusing me of cruelty and leaving him when I promised to always be his and his alone. He mentioned the other girl, saying he chose me over her and not to make his choice a waste, begged me to just tell him what had happened. The last thing he heard I was moving to live with my dad in Domino. If that was the case, now we never would be together. Didn't I love him? Didn't I?

And because I didn't know how to answer him, because I was crying, because I was lost and afraid of who I was and what I had become, I typed in an apology, told him I loved him, quickly said I would talk about it tomorrow, and closed the laptop.

I didn't want to talk tomorrow. I shouldn't have talked to him at all.

But...he was my best friend. He knew me more than I knew myself, that Conrad Jacobs, wiry, clever, pleading, wanting, waiting.

And he was thousands of miles away with another girl.


	5. Of Whores and Snot

**Ah, finally, the holidays are over. Let me know what you think, please! This is the first draft after all, and I'm open to changes. **

**Man, I'm hungry. **

Chapter 5

For the next few weeks I didn't even bother to go to the cafeteria for lunch, though Tristan and Atem couldn't understand why I didn't want to come with them, though they seemed to understand needing to do extra work. Instead, I would take the lunch I asked Denise to put together for me and head to the table in the corner of the library, by the computer books.

And he would be there, same as always, typing away as though he had been there since the end of Anatomy. As before, I would sit down, open Ruby, and got to work on my dragon. I threw myself into the code more than ever, running away with the coolness, hiding amongst the lines. I deleted the instant messenger program that I should have never installed, and I forced myself to not open it again, even though I wanted to every minute my laptop was open.

The asshole guy across from me didn't talk, and neither did I. I didn't want to. And, thanks to him, I didn't have to, like I did with everyone else. If my stomach hadn't grumbled painfully at me, I would've even forgotten my lunch.

The bell rang. We got up, said good-bye to each other, and left. In Anatomy we would sit together in the corner, hidden from the rest of the class, and secretly work on our little pet projects while taking notes. It wasn't until the second week that I learned his name: Seto Kaiba. I never found the means to say his name, though, and didn't know if he even knew mine.

In the mornings I would meet up with Atem, talk about, well, boring life stuff, like what we wanted to do for break, what shows we liked to watch (I didn't like watching TV at all), and I would sit next to him in English. Tristan and I became a loud set of friends who were quick to laugh, unoffended by each others sometimes inappropriate humor, and I loved him for it. He was my hipster boy, and I was his white trash girl with my white trash ass. I could hide in the jokes, the laughing, and didn't have to think about the stupid space in my chest that I didn't understand, and didn't _want_ to understand. Atem was too quiet, but he didn't seem to judge me too harshly like I soon found so many were prone to do, so I cautiously called him friend as well. Occasionally, after school, I would go with Tristan to the boys' dorm, and I'd end up playing hours of furious videogame battles with him and sometimes some of the other boys who didn't seem to be intimidated by my lack of manners. I hoped every day he would invite me, because then it meant less hours alone at home, with my computer, and the blinking email icon.

Tea sometimes followed in the background of my life, mostly for Atem, but she either ignored me or treated me with cautious politeness. I held nothing against her. If she didn't like me, that was okay. She could have her choice in who to like and who not to. It was okay if she didn't like me because of my poor habits, like bringing my own lunch (unheard of, apparently), my Walmart notebook, my little to nonexistent make up and hairstyles, and my bouncy personality. So I didn't try to push myself on her, and she didn't try to push herself on me either.

But I'd always end up back home, frightened and drawn to my laptop. I wanted to finish my dragon. I needed to. There was some childish thought in my mind that if I did, it would protect me from the nameless something that frightened and pained me. Conrad hurt me, but no, I deserved it, so it couldn't be him. I had no justification. I had no source of danger.

And always, the loneliness, that I was all too use to ignoring until it hit me unawares.

As one week, two weeks, and eventually a whole month passed, I began to see a picture of the kinds of kids that came to this royal academy of sorts. Their manners were perfect. While I stumbled, blurted what came to my mind, laughed loudly, and wasn't embarrassed by most things people found humiliating, the rich kids were, well, perfect. They laughed pleasantly when they should, were polite to a point, blunt without being startling, knowledgeable, clean cut, and all had perfectly done hair. Though not all of them were quick at school, they were all intelligent, or at least knew how to fake it.

Except for Yugi, who alone didn't make me feel so out of place. We ran alongside each other in gym and chatted happily about fanfictions, animes, mangas, Duel Monsters, and the occasional fictional sexy guy. We both didn't feel comfortable about real ones. They posed too much of a risk for pain. I didn't ask her for her experience, if there was one, and she didn't ask me about mine, and so we got along. After two weeks I begun to feel like maybe, just maybe, this girl could be a best friend for keeps, one that was safe and steady. One I could call up late at night and she wouldn't ask questions, just know she was needed. One I could have sleep overs with, tell secrets to, go for long walks just to talk, climb trees, dream.

Dad was just as I remembered him and he made it a point to at least be home every evening for dinner. Denise was also kind, and I eventually felt comfortable enough to simply let our conversations slip into silence. Once or twice my mom called, but she had always been the one to give me my privacy. She had raised an independent daughter, and she knew that.

In short, I began to get settled into my new life.

One day, beginning into November and into my second month there, when the cold really started to settle in with a bite and we were given long trench coats to go with our uniform, our Anatomy teacher had finished his gruesome presentations and told us to pair up for the next assignment. Everyone got up and picked there partners without a thought, and since Seto and I were reluctant from the start to hunt down someone when we both preferred to work on our own, we found ourselves awkwardly sitting together as the only people in the class who didn't have partners.

"Well," I said, "I don't want to do this as much as you, so we can at least be disgruntled together."

He shrugged. "Might as well. Just don't faint, because I'm not going to catch you."

I frowned. "Faint?"

He didn't explain, but gave me a droll look that told me he thought I was an idiot. It was one I was use to, as he used it most of the time whenever we thought to talk to each other.

And then the teacher opened the strange looking chrome fridge that had been sitting innocently there all month and I smelled formaldehyde. The weird nervous tremor started in my gut, and then I remembered. We were going to start our disectional lessons, and since this was a freaking rich kid's school, and since this was Human Anatomy, we would be dissecting shaved monkeys.

I felt my knees go a bit woozy when he pulled out the first dead monkey by it's tail.

He explained the procedure, but though I heard the words, they flew over me. I had been ignoring this upcoming day, always telling myself it was forever away and reasoning that, even if it did make me squirm, it wasn't like I was going to faint or anything.

But as Seto returned to our corner with the monkey to meet me with our tools and tray, I had to hide my face from the monkey and my heart was pounding in a weird, drunken way.

Seto laid the monkey down as though it were a textbook, a bored look on his face. He opened up the program on his laptop that we were suppose to be filling in, a plastic cover from the teacher over his keyboard, and typed in our names. That distracted me for a moment, because he spelled it correctly, without having to ask: Josephine Wheeler.

"Get the labels ready," he said, fingering a scalpel.

"We have to label the Latin names of the outside before we can cut."

"I'm not an idiot. He said it five times."

So, to keep myself from looking at the monkey, I wrapped the stickers around the needles and set them aside, where Seto picked them up with his gloved hands and poked them into the monkey.

"All right, I've done half. Your turn."

I gulped and did my best to hide my reluctance. This would be a piece of cake. I'd down the online practices without one mistake.

He dropped a label on the tray. I pinched it between my fingers and finally looked closely at the once living thing I had to stab it with.

It was wrinkly, like a tiny old man, and curled on its side like I had often seen pictures of babies in the womb do. I could see its bones through its wrinkly skin, and bluish, plastic filled veins. It's long tail could have been a rats.

With cold hands and a prickling of sweat on my brow, I stabbed the label in its appropriate place. I took it one at a time. I thought of the labels and nothing else. But then I had to pick up the tiny hand, so like mine, curled and dead.

At the last label, Seto and I stood with our hands out flat to show the teacher we were ready for inspection. He came over, remarkably shrunken and grey for middle age, took a look, and gave us the permission to move on.

Seto handed me the scalpel and turned the monkey onto its back. Not wanting to look like a wuss, I took it from him without another word and pressed the blade to the monkey's abdomen. I saw it sink in, felt my elbows lock as I tried to pull it down.

"Any day, now." said Seto, all ready with half a dozen needle labels.

I took a deep breath—which I regretted instantly as the smell filled my mouth too—and cut down.

It's organs, greys and purples and browns, stretched out of the opening, as though released by a cut elastic.

I could taste the formaldehyde.

And then I was staring across the black tiled floor, through wooden chair and table legs, with my ears ringing and not a clue how I got there. The side of my head hurt, and so did the top of my thigh. Through the buzzing I could hear loud voices.

A warm hand dropped on my shoulder.

"Josephine?"

It was Seto. It was the first time he didn't sound like he had a wasps nest up his butt, and it was to say my name that I hadn't known he knew until ten minutes ago.

The teacher reached us just as I was scrambling to my feet and trying to awkwardly laugh it off, but it sounded all weird in my ears. It wasn't just because everyone in the classroom was staring at me, but because I suddenly felt rebooted without saving, scrambled, confused, and oddly vulnerable. A muscle by my eye was twitching, and then I noticed my thigh was bleeding where the scalpel has poked me.

"She cut herself, but she's okay. She just can't handle viscera." said Seto.

The grey Anatomy teacher gave me a bewildered look, his fluffy eyebrows flying up his tall brow.

"And you're taking Human Anatomy?" he said.

"It's interesting," I said faintly, watching the blood make a steadily growing stain through my dark leggings beneath a lifted pleat of my skirt. "Um, can I...?"

"Yes, please, to the nurses with you, quickly. We can talk about this tomorrow." He frowned at Seto. "Make sure she gets there."

Seto looked grumpy (but then, he always looked grumpy), but just nodded and put his warm hand to my elbow. I noticed his fingers were long and thin. It made me think of when my grandmother had spread out my hands as a child and told me they would make a marvelous pianist.

He didn't let go until we were out in the empty, quiet hall.

"I told you not to faint." he said, somehow managing to sound bored out of his mind and irritated to hell at the same time.

I didn't say anything. He waited, then looked back at me, his expression changing ever so slightly. In my head I responded to him with, 'Yes, because I make it my hobby to pass out,' but I didn't.

I was shaking too badly, and I still felt a bit light headed. I was limping, too, as my thigh throbbed with each step, but not by much.

He sighed. "You're a weirdo."

"I know."

He didn't say anything and stuck around after the nurse had sat me down and lifted my skirt above my knee to get a look at the deep cut in my leg. She tittered and pressed a gauze to it as I explained lowly to her, then left to get her tools. Seto leaned against the wall, making me both comfortable and nervous at the same time.

"You can go back to class, you know." I said. "Or do you like being a creepy perv and want an excuse to watch my sexy thigh wound get taped up?"

"She's not taping you up, she's giving you stitches."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm taking Human Anatomy to use it for what it's for, dimwit, and there's no point going back without a partner to finish it with."

I kicked my free leg, squishing the edges of the gauze gently with my fingertips. "So you want to be a doctor. What kind?"

"I don't want to be a doctor."

"Then, why are you-"

"Because my family wants me to be. Honestly, don't you know anything about me? About the Kaibas? Do all you do is pay attention to yourself?"

I scowled at him. "Why should I know about you? You're just a mean jerk. What, are you so insecure and shy that you have to protect yourself by being mean?"

"No. I just get annoyed by stupidity."

"Wow, like I haven't heard that in a badly written Disney movie."

"Nice to hear you've finally found someone to flirt with, Seto." said the nurse, who had returned with a rolling tray and a smirk just for him.

That shut him up.

"I'm leaving." he said.

"About time."

He 'hmmphed,' which made him seem remarkably childish, and left. Then the school nurse took out a long needle and I began to wish he hadn't. Needles didn't scare me, but the anticipation before the prick did.

"This will just pinch."

That's what they always said. No, it doesn't feel like a pinch. It feels like a long skinny needle getting stabbed into your flesh, and you can feel it go down all the way. And even after she numbed me up, I could feel her needle and thread tucking and pulling through. To distract myself, I made small talk.

"You know him?"

"Seto? Yes. I use to work for one of the hospitals his family manages."

"One of?"

"Yes. They own and manage several, so Seto's has a point in being surprised you don't know."

I shifted to pull a wad of skirt out from my thigh. "I don't make it a hobby to memorize the owners of any company, let alone hospitals."

She looked up at me with a strange look. Then, she said, "Scholarship student?"

"Funny, I've been asked that twice now."

"Who's your father?"

"James Wheeler, why?"

She looked impressed, and I made the mistake of looking down while she was tying a knot. I got lightheaded for a moment, but looked out the window in time. "The owner of BX Software. I didn't know he had a child."

I smiled. "I don't think most people did. But, yep, I'm her."

"I guess you're new to high society, then?" She taped a bandaged over my thigh and kindly slipped on a new pair of clean stockings for me so as to not jostle the stitches. I nodded, then insisted I could show myself out. As she filled out paperwork and had me sign some, I left just a few minutes before the bell.

When lunch time came, I made a beeline for the library, trying to ignore the whispers around me. I hadn't even bothered to meet up with Atem and Tristan before they went to lunch, afraid to hear that they had heard of my little passing out moment. I hesitated before heading to my usual haunt. If he was going to be a jerk and thought me annoying, then he should move. But then realizing how rude and snobbish that sounded of me, and never being one to really go headfirst into conflict, I went to find another niche in the library, one on the first floor. Something in the corner, far away from prying eyes-

And there he was. Lounging on a couch, beloved lunch and desert on the side table next to him (a big pumpkin cookie, by the looks of it), and typing away on his laptop. I froze in place and he looked up with a scowl.

"Are you stalking me?"

"No!" I said a little too loudly, feeling an angry blush go to my face. "I was just trying to avoid you by coming down here, but oh no, you had to take all the good ideas!"

"Stop barking, we're in a library."

Embarrassed, upset, and just wanting to be alone with my dragon, I turned around. I had only taken a few steps when he spoke out.

"Before you leave, I saw your dragon earlier. Is that what you've been doing all this time? Programming a pet?"

I felt my stomach squirm. That had been my original idea, but after the instant message that had slid through... "He's not a pet."

"Oh? What is _he_ then, since you've given it a gender?"

And too down on myself to worry about what he thought, I blurted, "Protection."

Then I left, going as fast as I could without running, back to the computer bookcases upstairs. But there too was already somebody there. Some kids I recognized vaguely, but didn't know. One of the kids, a squat, trim boy with grey-blond hair, I recognized from Anatomy class.

A very bad feeling came over me. I tried to back out before they noticed me, but like that would ever happen.

"Oh hey! Wheeler! Come on over." he said.

"Sorry, I, uh, got studying to do."

"Just for a moment. I want to ask you something."

I didn't like the look the other two boys had, but I stepped closer. I was probably being paranoid. They were kids, yeah, but they were still human.

"What do you need?" I asked.

"Just a little pick me up," he said nonchalantly. "How much do you charge?"

I frowned. I had been sure, by the none-too-kind looks on the other boy's faces, that he was about to mock me for passing out an Anatomy class. I mean, who wouldn't? I guess it would be freaking hilarious if it isn't you, a girl who can't stand gore taking a Human Anatomy class. Heck, even I had to laugh at it a bit.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Don't be like that," his smile twisted into something that made my skin crawl. "I know you need the cash. I'll make it worth your evening, too. That is what white trash like you do, right?"

"Oh, don't look at him like that." said one of his friends with the same pervy smile. "We aren't trying to judge, we just thought we could enter into a business transaction, help you get notebooks made of real paper."

"Or maybe some makeup."

"Or a hairdresser."

"Woa, man, hold up, that's way too expensive."

"Not if she does all of us."

I felt cold all over, and the pinprick were making my hands go numb. I could feel a cold sweat under my arms. "What are you talking about?"

The boy from my Anatomy class rolled his eyes then pointed at me. "Customer service," then to him and his friends. "Customers."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It didn't hit home.

"That isn't funny." I said lowly.

"Stop being difficult and just name your price already. I promise we won't laugh."

But I glared at them, crushing the tears down from reaching my eyes.

"I'm not a whore, assholes!"

I left, this time not caring if I broke the rules. The librarian jumped up from her chair, yelling at me to stop running or else, but I was already out the doors before I could hear her threat. My book bag slapped against my thigh, making my stitches smart in protest, so I dropped it. It wasn't like it would be stolen. What kind of rich kid would steal a PC laptop and a cheap notebook?

My biggest concern was getting out of there before a tear came from my eyes. I didn't want anyone to see. No one wanted to be around a crying kid, an emo kid. No one wanted to be your psychologist. They'd probably mock me just as they had—those boys had been serious too! Was that what the boys here thought of me? As white trash, selling herself for money? Sure I knew a few trailer trash girls who got knocked up, but really!

I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going, but I found some double doors in a back hall that were unlocked and slid into the darkness behind them. It wrapped about me, blinding me. No one would see me here. No one would catch me here.

I breathed in a deep, ragged breath. I toed forward, feeling the floor, reaching out calmly. When I found cloth—thick, heavy—and then the hollow sound beneath me, I figured I had found a stage and wrapped myself up in the curtain hems. Only then, with only the light beneath the doors I had come through to see by, I let myself cry, because a part of me, a small part of me, was afraid that I could be a whore. After all, Conrad had been too close. I had let him in too close. Could one still be a whore even though they were virgin?

I remembered Conrad's hands on me and cried harder. I missed him. He hurt me. He was only being honest. I wasn't worth it. I was alone.

My beer-loving, gambling step father's voice rang through my head, accompanied by the scowl and popping eyes.

_"You think you're being someone's friend by staying here, but you're not. You're not helping anyone. You think you're better than the rest of us, that you know better, but you're just a damn kid!"_

Mother had been lost in her room. My sister was gone.

I was only trying to take care of them. Conrad had listened, Conrad had asked me to marry him, to run away with him—offered to provide for me, keep me away from them.

But what about _her?_ What about...

I wasn't worth it. I couldn't be.

I didn't hear the footsteps until they were at the door, and by then light was breaking through my soothing darkness. I panicked and swept the curtain about me, like a cocoon.

Whoever they were, paused. Then they walked near. Just as I started to pray that they would pass by, the curtain was pulled aside, revealing me, snot faced, teary eyed, hair probably everywhere, and looking utterly pathetic.

Seto looked down at me, my bag in his hand. I averted my eyes. I didn't want to see his face. I didn't want to see his disgust, or his pity, or whatever he thought. I tried to choke back my sobs, but I kept hiccuping, and I felt even more ashamed by the choking noises they came out as when I tried to smother them.

This couldn't be happening to me. Jerk-face, arrogant Seto, who I barely knew, had now seen me at my worst twice in one day. First passing out, and now this?

I wanted to die.

The door closed with a soft hushing sound, and we were both plunged into darkness. I could just make out his shoes in the crack of light beneath the door. They were made of brown leather.

Something rough tapped against my arm.

"Your bag." he said quietly.

I took it from him, but didn't say anything.

Then, with a quiet huff of air, he sat down in front of me, and his long crossed legs appeared in the very faint light. I shied back.

"What are you doing?"

"Sitting." he said.

"Don't you have a cookie to get to?"

"You're being pathetic." he said, as though it explained his actions perfectly.

"I know, that's kinda why I wanted to be _alone._"

But as response, I felt something soft being pushed into my hand and the brush of his fingertips. I could feel embroidered edges. A handkerchief. I waited a bit to see if he would take it back, or do anything, really, but he didn't and I blew my nose as covertly as possible. Of course, I only succeeded in sounding like I was trying to unplug a sink.

"I know that's probably how they treat the scholarship kids," I said, "I'm not really hurt, just sort of surprised, guess it will take me a bit more to get use to it."

"You're lying," he said, "they thought you a whore and tried to pay you for sex."

I flinched. "You heard?"

"Obviously."

"Oh..."

"I guess your whole act is a lie, then? You only pretend to not care what others think." He continued gruffly, sounding awkward in the darkness.

"That wasn't a lie, I don't care."

"Sure, which is why you're hiding in the auditorium."

"It just caught me by surprise, okay? I thought they were going to laugh at me for passing out in Anatomy, because it is kinda funny, really."

"Is this how you really are, then? You just run away from how you really feel? Because you weren't laughing when I took you to the nurses office. You looked like you were about to cry."

"Careful, jerk, or you might start sounding like Oprah, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to be alone. How about I break into your room to watch you turn into a human snot pump, eh?" I sniffed and wiped at my nose again with the handkerchief. "Why'd you follow me, anyways? You're not someone I imagine having a heart for persecuted new kids."

"Because you dropped your bag and your dragon. It's pathetic and stupid to leave behind a month's worth of work."

"I was going to come back for it."

"When? After you had your little bawl?"

"_Yes_, which you are interrupting."

He humphed. "You're being so uncouth to me, yet you act so nice to everyone else, is that an act too?"

"Oh my gosh, Kaiba, go away already. Here's your handkerchief, thanks."

"Keep it. Why would I want your snot?"

"Look who's being uncouth now."

"At least I'm consistent."

"Why do you freaking care?"

"Because I don't like liars."

I wanted to throw the handkerchief at his face. Let my snot get on him, for all I cared. But a small part of me, the part that did the little bit of thinking before I acted, held it back, because, well, Seto was being awfully nice for bringing back my bag.

"How do you know so much about me, anyways? I only see you in Anatomy and lunch, and even then we don't really talk. Are you a stalker?"

He snorted. "Hardly. All those here who are destined to be inheritors of companies make it their business to know about those around them, either for possible business partners, enemies, or useful employees."

"Sooo, you are a stalker."

"No."

"All right, all right."

And since I didn't want to repeat myself, nor did I feel much like facing the rest of the world with my face all blotchy from crying, I stayed put, and so did Seto. At one point he asked for my bag back to check on something, and really just wishing he'd go away, and not particularly defensive of anything in there, I gave it up.

He appeared in the blue of the boot up screen. I watched him, dimly aware of something that I had somehow overlooked entirely: Seto was handsome. Really handsome, and not in a cute boyish way, but...like a man. Had I been too preoccupied by his attitude to notice?

But it didn't change anything, and I still wanted him to leave.

"What's your password?"

"What are you doing to my computer?" I asked, irritated.

"I want to see this protector program of yours."

"Why?"

"Can't I be curious? Ruby isn't the kind of code one uses for graphic design, after all."

I hesitated. It was an innocent enough request, and Seto had, after all, supposedly saved my bag for me. It was weird that he had followed after me, but I didn't want to think too much about it. Besides, it would probably help me calm down enough to head to class before the bell rang.

He handed over my computer and scooted himself besides me. In the darkness I noticed his smell, like leather, or velvet, and pine. What did this guy do, rub himself with pine needles every morning?

I booted up the computer, then clicked on the shortcut to start up my program. With a rumble of CPU and cooling fan, a little white dragon appeared, curled around the Recycling Bin icon in the corner. I had designed it after the European dragon style, with four legs and a large set of leathery wings. It's scales were fine, detailed, and shifted the light as it breathed. I tapped on the 'H' key, and the dragon lifted up it's head, staring out through the screen with bright, blue eyes. It sneezed and smoke unfurled from it's nostrils.

I turned on the microphone in the corner of the screen. "Blue-eyes, say hi to Kaiba."

The dragon got onto its paws and opened it's mouth. A little chat bubble appeared next to it. "Hello, Kaiba." Except it was spelled as "Kyba."

Seto gave a low, impressed noise, somewhere along the lines of a grunt.

"Forgetting you made it look like a Duel Monster, you gave it voice recognition? You had to have programmed that yourself, since I can't see you getting the copyrights to using those that already exist."

"That's not too hard, you know. Have you ever tried?"

"Never had the need."

Another chat bubble appeared next to the dragon. "What are you talking about?"

"That's what he says when his program can't make out the words." I waited for the three seconds needed for Blue-eyes to clear his voice cache. "We're talking about you, Blue-eyes."

The dragon dipped it's head, blushed, and hid his face behind his blue wings. Seto let out a small chuckle.

"Cute. But what does he do? You said he wasn't a pet."

Suddenly the wings spread apart and the dragon straightened, smoke puffing from it's nostrils with sparks.

"I am not a pet!" said the speech bubble.

I smiled as Seto look taken aback. Then, I pushed control and 'C' for a chat bar and typed in a command to Blue-eyes, which basically referenced him to a line of code that started a specific action.

Blue-eyes nodded and turned around to sit vigil. I opened up my web browser and started accessing my email. When I hesitated, Blue-eyes looked back at me, a look of scaly concern on his dragon face.

"Just a moment, Blue-eyes." I said. The dragon looked back.

I googled random images of monsters instead. Blue-eyes started to growl and his tail flicked.

Seto watched silently, eyebrows high in interest.

"Okay, Blue-eyes," I pointed out a particularly gruesome monster. "Attack."

The dragon pounced, claws outstretched. In a matter of moments the picture was destroyed. When I reloaded the page, the monster picture was nowhere to be seen. Blue-eyes glanced over his shoulder, looking pleased with himself.

"Very good, Blue-eyes."

The dragon smiled, then returned to his vigil.

"So, he tears up pictures you don't like." said Rhy's wryly. "Guess that would work if you had a picture of a bad ex or something." Asshole.

"It's not just pictures," I said, opening up the command bar again, "it's anything, really. Any program, code, picture—here, watch. This is one of the beta websites I set up to test him."

I highlighted said web address. "Blue-eyes, attack."

The dragon did so, with much vigor and tearing of claws. When I tried to refresh the page, an unavailable page pulled up, informing me the site did not exist.

Now Seto's jaw had dropped.

"But...but that server is-"

"-run on a kernel operation system, like your mac." I said. "Once you figure out how to hack past a kernel, you can wheedle out whatever information you want."

"But it can't really be deleted. There will always be a memory of it."

I smiled. "Yeah, but how many people in the world know how to access that? Once public and main access is denied, only the best of the best can find any remains of it."

"Why did you create that?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I just thought it would be fun." Any deeper reason than that would be being too truthful.

He was staring at me in disbelief. "You just thought it would be fun? Josephine, you just created a remote control virus that can delete any information on command!"

"Woa, don't go overboard! Blue-eyes can't break into the pentagon or anything. It's only public access stuff he can get to."

"Still, do you know what kind of money people would pay for that? Think of all the problems with cyber crime and internet monitoring, this would make it a thing of the past!"

"So?"

He just stared at me. "I can't believe you."

I scowled and turned to shut down my computer. Blue-eyes knew what I was doing and started to whine in protest. "I created Blue-eyes as a protector, and I've created others like him. I just like making stuff, okay? It's the only thing I'm really good at anyways. I never planned on using it to make money—unless I had to."

The bell rang in the distance. I sighed and snapped my laptop close, plunging us into darkness.

"I'm not finished with him anyways," I said. "I want him to be able to understand people more, down to a point, so he could, I don't know, be like a virtual friend or something. I think that would be cool."

I heard him give pause for a moment as I stood up and slung my bag over my shoulder. Then, he sighed, and stood up next to me.

"You really are a weirdo."

"I know."

We left together, down the empty back hall and into the world of light. As we neared the traffic of the main halls, I reached out and tugged on Seto's sleeve.

"Look, I'm sorry for being a jerk back there."

"It's fine." he said.

"You were right, though, I was being pathetic. It really doesn't matter what those jerks think, and I was acting like a three year old dropping my bag like that."

"I know."

"And," I reached into my bag and gave him half of my wrapped sub sandwich. "I owe you lunch."

He took the sandwich from me, and for the first time I saw the faintest of smiles on the edge of his mouth. Even that small change made it hit me how handsome Seto was, and how ridiculous it was that I had somehow missed it. I wasn't afraid of him like I was of Atem, though, and I didn't bother to see what that meant.

"But you also owe me now," I smirked. "What was the C++ for?"

His face dropped into his usual scowl. "It's not C++."

"Then what is it?"

"My own code."

I looked up at him from under my eyebrows skeptically. "You're own code?"

"Look, I don't care if you're late for class, but I rather not be."

"Calm your tits, I'm walking, I'm walking."

And for some reason, after that, Seto and I became friends. I guess my snot had magical powers or something.


	6. Stuck in the Snow

**Kinda sad this isn't getting very many reviews. : Oh well. ^.^ I liked writing it, so whatev. I hope the readers I have like it, cause they're what matters, right?**

Chapter 6

The next day I found myself telling tidbits of what had happened to Yugi, who listened in fascination as we stretched. The 'gym teacher' was busy on the other side of the room telling off a pair of pretty, dolled up girls for being afraid of getting sweaty even when there were no boys in class. I wouldn't have cared even if there were guys. I was here to get buff, not attract the opposite sex.

"He likes you." she said, all too seriously.

"Seto?"

"Yes."

"Um, why don't you look too happy about that?" I frowned. "Wait, you don't...?"

She put her hands to her cheeks in alarm and shook her head. "Oh! No no no. I like someone else." she slapped a hand over her mouth and turned so shame face, I had to laugh. She could make the Terminator have pity on her with those purple puppy eyes and tri-colored pigtails.

"Oh! Do tell."

"Not yet, not yet." she gave me her uneasy, and yet sweet, smile.

"Then what's wrong with Seto? I think you're wrong about him liking me, but you got me curious." Because, honestly, I couldn't be his type. For one, I was no one's type in this freaking school, Ms. Wheeler-white-trash as I was. The memory of the boys in the library made me wince.

"He's just not, well, very nice." she said softly, leaning in low. "Haven't you noticed by now that he doesn't have any friends? He won't talk to anyone, I know, I tried. He just ignored me and pretend I didn't exist, so I figured he just didn't want to be friends with me, which is okay. Also, I've heard," she glanced around her, as though afraid someone might hear, which made me laugh. What, did she think she'd be caught by the gossip police?

"What?" I said, when she looked embarrassed.

"They say he's actually gay."

I stared. "Then why do you say you think he likes me?"

"Because he's _never_ helped someone out, and I'm just surprised he lets you sit in his corner at lunch. Didn't he threaten to sue you or something? Not that I heard anything like that, of course."

"But he's gay."

"He could bisexual."

"How does anyone knows he's gay anyways?"

"Well, there's lots of little stories, and I think most of them are made up, you know how people are, but one in particular says that he was caught kissing a boy once." her eyes went wide. "Oh, what I wouldn't have paid to see that!"

I stared at her, all amusement gone. "You're serious?"

She scowled at me—well, as close as she could get to scowling, which was more of a pout. "What, you don't believe in free love?"

"I just don't want to see anyone swapping spit, thank you. I can't even stand it when I'm watching a movie, yuck!"

She giggled and we had to quiet down because the gym teacher was drawing near, and he looked ready to kill puppies. When he passed by us (after pushing down on Yugi's shoulders to get her to stretch herself farther), she peeked up between the frame of her blond bangs and black and purple pigtails.

"Either way, that wasn't fair of them. Those boys, that is. To make that gross assumption of you. You don't even look like a whore."

I hugged my forehead to my feet. "Hasn't that ever happened to you?"

She shook her head. "The scholarship students are always considered to be too smart to lower themselves like that. Apparently, we're too busy studying to be of any use to anyone anyway."

"I'm smart!" I said with a puff. "Just because I'm not a straight A student doesn't mean anything!" More like a straight B student, if I was on top of it.

"They don't know that, and besides..." she looked to the side, then shook her head. "Nevermind."

"What? Come on, Yugi, you know I won't get offended. Tell me what you're thinking."

She blushed prettily and straightened her legs into another stretch. "Okay, um, I think you look fine the way you are, because at my old school even the popular girls would do up their hair and make up like you."

"When I do wear make up." I said, which only happened if I had a zit or something.

"But that's the thing. Here, image and presence is very important in the business world, or in any work environment. Everyone here is being trained to sell themselves in one way or another. By not putting as much time in your hair and make up, it shows you don't care about yourself, or, at least, that you're not a very dedicated worker. That can connect to laziness and, in turn, stupidity, which in turn-"

"All right, all right, I get it. By not dressing myself up everyday I look like white trash to them."

"I don't think so, I think you're really lucky to look so naturally pretty without make up, I mean, you have really long eyelashes and really pretty eyes."

"Aww, Yugi, you're making me blush, but you don't have to excuse yourself. I get it." I thought for a moment, bending my knees beneath me to touch my toes. "I just like my sleep, and I've never seen the point of waking up a whole hour earlier just to doll myself up. I always thought that was reserved for dates and the such."

"It would be just a little sacrifice, though, to get everyone's attention off of you. Blend in, you know."

"Ugh, they're not worth it. Won't they ever just forget about me?"

She gave me a weak smile. "They're more aware then most, I find. But I guess they can be annoying, huh? If you like I can teach you a few tricks of how to do your hair quick."

I stood up to reach to the ceiling, grinning. "Would you? That'd be great! My house? Tonight? My dad gave me a room with a huge bathroom."

"I have play practice tonight,"

"Oh yeah! I keep forgetting about it, I'm a horrible friend, you got that part and all."

"It's okay, it's just a minor role, but how about tomorrow? It's Friday, I should have nothing going on."

"Heck yeah! I'll give you my address and you can text me when you can come over, kay?"

We finished our class period, showered, and dressed. Right before we parted, I tried to sneak over to her all creepy like and she squeaked appropriately.

"Who is he?" I whispered.

"What?"

"The dude who you like. Come on, I probably won't know him anyways."

"But that's the thing," she was picking at the floor with the toe of her shoe. "You do know him."

"Can I still know? I promise I won't breathe a word, not even dead people will know."

She smiled, leaned over, and whispered in my ear. My eyes widened, but before I could say a word about it she ran off. I frowned, but I wasn't surprised. Atem's looks were deadly. Once more I was thankful to my powers of avoiding dangerous cute boys. In a way, I felt bad for Yugi. Tristan would have been so much better to crush on, maybe...wait, was Tristan even crushable? I had never thought of him in that regards.

Speaking of Tristan, a week or so later I ran into him on my way to the library to haunt my codes with Seto. He was slightly out of breath and had a leather man purse around his shoulder. Outside it had started to snow, and I was playing with the idea of egging Seto outside just to see what Mr. Iceman would do when faced with his snowy cousin. I already knew he'd never agree to it, the jerkface.

"Gal, Joey, why do you have to be so hard to get a hold of? Here." he handed me an envelope.

"There better be money in this." I said seriously. "And you could have just mailed it to me."

"I wanted to give it to you in person! Then I can make sure to coerce you to come."

"Come?"

"My birthday party!"

"Dude, aren't we a little too old for that?" I slid a finger through the envelope anyways.

"Course not, and if you come you'll see my party style is definitely grown up."

"Tristan, when you talk like that, it just makes me scared."

"What?" he opened his palms to me, eyebrows rising in an attempt to look innocent and causing the needle of his hair to twitch ever so slightly. "It'll be fun! We're big kids, aren't we?"

"Sure."

"Aw, come on, Joey, it won't be right without you. You're my _Super Smash_ buddy!"

"I can only handle so much of that. Besides, what would I even give you for your birthday? I'm broke white trash, remember?"

His white teeth flashed in a grin. "You could always go out on a date with me."

I scowled. "Not funny, dude."

"Not joking. You'd be fun to date."

I felt a weird squirm at the bottom of my stomach. I moved to smile, somewhat touched, but not really. He looked a bit nervous, and that endeared him enough to not get a punch to the face. I wasn't feeling any way particularly romantic after the sleezeballs who tried to buy there way into my pants. Though, Tristan had been a fun friend. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

But then I remembered Conrad. He flashed through, dark eyes bristling, looking pained.

My smile dropped.

"I can't."

Tristan gave me a strange look. "You can't? What, is your dad against you dating?"

"No." I should have said yes.

He grimaced. "Are you already dating someone?"

I hesitated. "No. Not really. I'm unattached."

"Then why not? Look, if you just aren't interested in me that way, just say so. We'll still be friends."

"It's nothing like that Tristan, I...it's just complicated. Look, I'll see what I can do about the party. I'll talk to my dad 'bout it, thanks for inviting me."

"No prob." he said, his voice a forced cheer that he forgot to make reflect on his face.

Bothered, aching, I made my way to the library, my nose to the card in Tristan's invitation. It was probably the fanciest invitation I'd ever seen, on scented paper, gold engraving, yadda yadda. Damn rich people.

I reached our usual table, next to the computer books, and sat down with a quiet greeting to Seto. He barely paused to look up, nod, then went back. I shook my head.

"Don't you ever have anything better to do?" I asked. "I hear staring at a screen too long can bleach your face."

"Is that what happened to you?"

"Ouch."

He smirked, eyes not breaking from his code for a second.

"But really, dude, that can't be healthy." And without hesitating, because I'm that tactless, "I heard you don't have friends."

The typing paused. "And since when have you been into gossip?"

"I didn't ask. It was kinda thrown at me by a friend. She also told me you were gay, is that true?"

He sighed and closed his eyes. "Joey, you're going to get yourself in trouble one day with that mouth."

"Well?"

"And what if I was?" he looked up at me, that faint, almost straight line smile on his face.

"I'd want to take you shopping, of course, to see if that stereotype about gay guys being great shopping partners is true."

"You don't even like shopping." he said smartly.

I pulled out my own laptop and frowned. "I don't ever remember telling you that."

"I assumed." he picked up a Styrofoam bowl of soup, leaned back, and blew on it. "You never wear hair accessories. Even if you are poor, you can find them affordable anywhere, yet you own only two necklaces that you wear on a daily basis, have about three pairs of earrings, and you wear the same shoes everyday."

I frowned. "They're part of the dress code, and I have more jewelry than that!"

"Only the color, but, of course, a simpleton like you wouldn't bother to see that loophole."

Ah. So those girls wearing high heels and pumps weren't being rebellious. Darn.

"You are such a creep."

"You say that every time. I'm not sure it means what you think it means, I'm simply observant."

"Creeps are too, but you haven't answered my question."

He looked over the rim at me, sipping his tomato soup and chewing a bit on what I assumed was a chunk of tomato. I waited, but he just looked like he was waiting on me. I made a face and typed in my password, determined to not repeat myself. He sighed.

"Why do you care?"

"So you are gay."

"I didn't say that."

"Are you bi?"

"For one who's so interested in my sexuality, it's a bit hypocritical to call me the creep, don't you think? If you must know, I'm asexual."

I blinked. "Asexual? So you...ew." I shuddered and whipped my hands in the air, as though to flick off something extremely nasty from my fingers.

"Not like that." he looked insulted. "See, if I look at my shoulder and will it, a clone of myself will be born. Thus, I need no sexual preferences to reproduce."

I would never understand how he can say stuff like that with a straight face.

"Okay, Mr. Alien, I get the idea, leave it alone."

He just smirked. "No, I just want to see what you'll come up with to try and figure it out. I thought the answer would be obvious."

"Well, I'm not a stalker like you."

"Maybe you should be, then you might be more aware of those around you, like that Tristan. Don't go to his party."

I clicked on Blue-eyes, who pounced and mewled in happiness to see me. I pet him with my cursor as I frowned at Seto. "Should I even ask how you know that?"

He gave me a dead panned look and pointed at my bag, where I had set down the invitation. I felt my neck heat up and groaned.

"All right, I should have seen that."

"Don't go."

"Tristan's my friend, Seto, I don't think you really have a say in the matter, but try me."

"Not everyone in this school gets here through noble means. Tristan is the son of a mafia godfather, a rather influential one."

My hand jerked half way through fixing some code in Blue-eyes's program, and several scribbles spilled across the screen. "The mafia? They still exist?"

He sighed. "Of course they still exist,"

"But I thought-you mean mafia mafia, like bootlegging, fadora-wearing dudes in suits that say 'see here,' a lot and talk in a heavy Brooklyn accent?"

"You know, for someone who professes to not follow the stereotypes of the poor, you're really giving a weak case."

"Gah! You're such a jerk!"

"You say that a lot too."

"And what's wrong with his dad being in the mafia? It's just a birthday party. There'll be some cake, some candles, spin the bottle, what could go wrong?"

He was looking at me funny, but then Seto gave me this look a lot. It was the, 'I can't believe you're so naïve and I want to pinch myself to make sure it's real' look. "What?"

"Just, stop talking and promise to not go."

"Uh uh, you're giving me that look, I gotta know."

"Don't make me explain, it'll just embarrass you."

"Fine, fine," I fixed up the code, then smiled. "By the way, give me your IP address."

"Why?"

"I want to test a trick of Blue-eyes's."

He wrinkled his nose in annoyance, but reached over with one hand to click on his computer and wrote down the number on a napkin to give it to me.

"You screw up my computer..."

"Yeah yeah, I'll die a slow and painful death by USB drives." said I.

I almost didn't see his smile as I entered in the IP address. That small, almost nonexistent smile of his.

I finished the stop code and closed the window. Blue-eyes stood at attention, ready. "All right, you ready for this?"

He grunted. I took that as a yes and turned on the mic.

"Blue-eyes, shoo."

The dragon tucked it's head, turned, and leaped off the screen. Seto only had one eye on his computer, most of his attention on his desert for the day: a tiny loaf of cinnamon swirl bread. He popped a piece in his mouth and swallowed.

"Hello, Blue-eyes." he said.

I heard a familiar coo from his computer and gave a quiet cheer—we were still in the library, after all.

"First time! Man, I'm good! Ladies and gentlemen, Blue-eyes the dragon is now, um...gosh, what's the word. Whatever, he can travel! Woot!"

"So how do I send him back?" he said.

I deflated, but only a little bit. "Uh, um, just change it to my IP address, I guess. Can I borrow your computer for a moment?"

He grunted and passed it over with his two still clean fingers. Blue-eyes wagged it's tail at me on a blank, silver desktop. As I opened up his program window to switch out the IP addresses, I couldn't help but comment on how boring his desktop was.

"At least it shows more maturity than your pikachu wallpaper."

"Hey, don't dis pika."

He finished his cinnamon roll as I sent Blue-eyes back to my desktop and made a mental note to fix that. I couldn't have whoever saw Blue-eyes needing to open up his code just to send him back. Maybe I could write a shortcut for that. If I could get that to work, then not only could Blue-eyes visit people, but he could serve as protector for them or deliver mail. E-mail delivered by dragon was so much cooler than stupid _Yahoo!_ anyways.

"And to prove that I do more than work on a computer all day, would you like to go out for a coffee after school? My treat, since I doubt you've bothered to ask for an allowance yet."

Seto had his chin on his intertwined fingers, face blank except for an eyebrow raised in question. I felt the familiar squirm in my gut. What was it with today? Was it national date day or something?

"I thought you said you were asexual?" I pushed his laptop towards him, dragon free.

Seto scoffed. "Honestly, Joey, as friends. If I was going to take someone out on a date it wouldn't be to get coffee."

"So, you're not asexual?"

The dead pan glare. "Forget I said anything."

"Yes! Coffee! Though I like hot apple cider," I stopped. A chat window had appeared next to Blue-eyes from a messenger I thought I had deleted.

That boy Conrad had taught me how to access other computers, after all, it was only about time he had cracked into mine.

I could feel the blood drain from my face nonetheless. I should set Blue-eyes on him. I should point, say the word.

**Joey, talk to me. Why are you avoiding me? Have you found someone else all ready? I wouldn't be surprised, you attract guys. You flirt without realizing it, it's just the healthy light about you.**

Blue-eyes waited, tail thumping next to the start button. I felt chilly. More words appeared.

**Please, I can't live without you. You once said you could marry me, what happened? Is this how your love works? I thought better of you, I thought you could be loyal, even after your slip ups. No, I don't think you're a whore, I've forgiven you, but please, I can't hold back any longer, I need you. I don't want to go back to chasing Tonya.**

"Joey?"

Seto voice was what I needed. I snapped out of it and clicked.

"Blue-eyes, attack."

The dragon launched itself with a hiss at the chat screen. Even as his claws tore it apart in clumps of pixels and it sprayed beams of blue-lightning, I saw the last words.

**...how could you betray me, my angel.**

"What is it?" asked Seto, leaning towards me curiously. I instinctively slammed my laptop close, instantly regretting it at the startled look on his face.

"Nothing."

"Joey, you're all pale."

"It's really nothing, just startled. Coffee sounds great, where shall I meet you?"

But Seto face darkened. He pulled back, fingers tapping on his leg. After considering me for a moment, in which I tried to beg him with my eyes to forget about it, he shrugged.

"Front of the library will be fine."

I slipped out my phone. "I'll check in with my dad first."

Then the bell rang. Seto stood up, slipping his computer into his briefcase and throwing away his lunch wrappings.

"Here's my number, text me if you can't." he took a pen I had forgotten in my mop of scraggily blond ponytail and scribbled down a number in my open, Walmart notebook.

"Should I be honored to have the great asexual Seto's number?"

"Very." he said all too seriously, which made me smile.

But as he left me to head to class, I could feel the lead weight in my stomach sinking to my feet. Conrad was right. I really was being cruel. I was being heartless. Was this really what my love was worth? To be frightened away from my best friend, to not forgive him for his mishaps when he had only been missing me? Would I ever see him again?

I knew I shouldn't, but my defenses were weakening. I didn't know how much longer I could stay away. I loved him, didn't I? Didn't I?

Then why did it hurt so much?

My dad was cool with it, happy even (because, of course, he somehow knew Seto's parents, the busy body), and after school I walked through the emptying halls, bag flung over my shoulder. I was in a very good mood. The snow had thickened and I was going to be able to sit in a classy coffee shop and sip hot apple cider to watch it all. How more charming could it get! And knowing Seto, he wouldn't even blink an eye if I pulled out a manga to read. He'd probably have a book out for himself anyways. For how often he lectured me about how to act in the so called 'aristocratic' society of our school, he had some serious social issues. Maybe he really _didn't_ have any friends. Not that that would scare me away or anything. When you move as much as I do, you often find that those willing to be your best friends are those with none. Social awkwardies didn't bug me. Sometimes I even wondered if they had rubbed off on me.

Seto had his nose in a book, leaning next to the dark wood doors of the library. Lanky and broad shouldered, I couldn't help but grin at the way he held each angle of himself with confidence bordering intimidation. Yeah. This guy had issues.

And so, "You have issues, you know that?"

He looked at me past his book. He had blue eyes, you know, bright as my dragon's and more. He gave me his trademark, straight-line smile and snapped his book close.

"Well, I guess it's all the more appropriate for you to have issues too, then." he pushed himself off the wall. "I assume your father is all right with it?"

"Would I be here otherwise? By the way, how do your parents know him anyways?"

"Your dad gets around."

"Details, Seto."

"He designed a program for one of the hospital systems, something to do with computer/monitor interactions, don't make me bore myself."

I just about skipped in place after him, like a little sister or something, and it just goes to prove how he was starting to get use to me when he didn't comment on the way I bounced on my toes. He led me to the back parking lot, where a dozen or so cars were dusted with snow. I expected him to lead me to a sleek Porsche or something, but he stopped next to a two door, black Toyota Yaris. The only thing rich about it was that it had been built in the last three years, by the looks of it.

"Huh," I said.

He opened the door for me and I slipped in, stuffing my bag at my feet. It smelt like him in here: leathery, and as though he had rubbed pine needles on every surface.

"What, did you expect me to drive a Lamborghini or something?"

"Yeah, actually. Aren't you loaded?"

"One of the great secrets of being rich is to not be wasteful," he looked over his shoulder to back up, defroster blasting away the fog that appeared. "Sports cars are the epitome of wasteful. For how aerodynamic they look, they are extremely inefficient, repair bills are ludicrous, and for that price you'd think they'd be as reliable as my Toyato here."

"Okay, yeah, but did you have to get black? That's so boring."

"What, would you have preferred violent purple like your father's Camero?"

"Don't go that far. Besides, I'm just impressed you own your own car. The day I finally can afford my own car it'll probably be used, junky, and a van, because by then I'll have a billion kids."

He gave me a brief frown as he checked up and down the roads. While his smiles were hard to catch, his frowns were impressive.

"You want to have a billion kids?" but the frown twitched. He was amused.

"Nah, maybe like two or three, but a billion sounds funnier."

"Just sounds painful to me."

"You?"

He shrugged, adjusting the heat. We were leaving campus and he had pulled into the main road. His Toyota Yaris seemed to blend in with the other cars, which, being close to a rich neighborhood, was a blend of Volkswagen, Lincolns, Cadillacs, and brands I didn't even know.

"I'm asexual, remember? I'll just look at my hand and clone a kid per finger."

I slapped my knee. "Darn it. I almost had you. The only way to answer politically correct to that is 'as many as she wants,' but dang it."

"I'm surprised you even tried. For one, my memory is perfect, and two, when have I ever bothered to be politically correct?"

"Your humility never ceases to impress me, Seto."

"Likewise to your sarcasm, Joey."

Just like his Yaris, he didn't take us to anywhere fancy. He pulled up to what looked like a Thespian, mom and pop sort of coffee house that somehow could pull off using Christmas lights for decoration without being tacky. Then again, Thanksgiving was just around the corner. When the door opened a warm waft of air pushed passed the scent of coffee beans, and I breathed it in. My tongue still tingled for cider.

Which Seto ordered for me in order to show off his apparently perfect memory.

"I can pay for myself, you know." I was honestly annoyed.

"It was just to save time, don't let it get to your head."

I snorted. "Unlikely."

In a corner, a bunch of old mismatched and overstuffed armchairs had been set up next to reading lamps in a way that somehow added to the Bohemian air of the place. Seto lowered himself into a sea foam green one, reached for an issue of the _Economist_, and flipped it open.

"I thought we were here to prove you do something healthy?"

"And the Economist is unhealthy?" he must of understood the look on my face, though, because he sighed, brushed aside the magazines on the table, and pulled up a game board. As I helped him set up the black and red checkers, a waitress came by and handed us our drinks. I squealed at my foam topped, cinnamony apple cider, burning myself in the process.

"By the way, it's hot." he snickered.

"Oh, shut up. You first, age before beauty."

He didn't bother to ask how I knew he was older than me, probably knowing I just guessed because, in my childish brain, he was bigger, so therefore older, and moved a piece forward.

"Oh, and prepare yourself. Tomorrow I'm going to come to school transformed into a ravishing beauty." I said.

He didn't even skip a beat in sipping his coffee and giving me the straight-lip smile that had been growing more and more frequent.

"If you had a plastic surgery appointment this evening, you should have told me."

I threw one of the spare pieces of checkers at him. "Like I'd ever do something like that." But I told him about how Yugi had suggested that if I put more time into my hair and makeup, maybe kids wouldn't be so quick to assume I was white trash.

I stopped when I started realizing I didn't like the look on his face. I hadn't meant to get a reaction out of him, heck, it didn't even cross my mind to predict if he had a reaction. Like most things I said, I just said it, and I had been chattering to him about my day with equal lack of thought.

"What's the look for?" I said. "I'm not going to paint my face like a bimbo, you know, and I'm not catering to their whims or anything."

"Your hair's fine." he said. "And so is your make up. And they'll just do whatever they do, no matter what you do."

"Jeeze, that sounded really close to a scolding there. And I'm not wearing any make up."

He blinked. Paused. Then moved a checkers piece to kill half a dozen of mine in one move. I cursed.

"Next you're going to tell me you don't do your hair." he said.

"Of course I do, I am well versed in the art of personal hygiene, thank you." I actually felt a bit miffed, and tossed a hand through my messy pony tail and the few pieces of loose hair around my face as though to make a point. "I'm not white trash."

"Then shouldn't that be enough?"

"It would be, if guys weren't asking me how much for a lap dance."

"They didn't ask that, and it has only been that one time." he was annoyed with me, now, but that was one of his usual phases: blank, annoyed, cocky, sometimes amused. Even then, he was more an ice block than ever.

"And I want it to be the last time."

"I thought you didn't care."

"I don't, though you seem to."

"Like I said," he watched closely as I made a lame-brain attempt to set up a trap for him on the checkers board. "Dishonesty annoys me. Maybe it's one of those 'issues' you accused me of."

"I didn't accuse you. I made an educated observation."

He caught my trap easily. I don't even think it was a trap from the beginning for him. I hadn't even managed to take a single one of his black checkers from him, and it annoyed me. Sure, I was no pro at this game, but this was ridiculous. He did his smile again when I asked him if he practiced his checker powers while naked in his room, for of course, that's the only way to play checkers. I only realized later that that could have been taken the wrong way, and apologized so, but he only chuckled, a warm, low sound.

"Yeah, one of these days your mouth," he shook his head, not bothering to finish his sentence. "But, until then, it's one of the reasons I guess I can stand you."

I didn't get this at all, and was momentarily distracted by my last checker. "Weird, I'd think that'd be a reason you can't stand me."

"See it my way," he looked up at me through his lashes, which I noticed were awfully long, like a girl's. "I have trained all my life to try and pick the lies out of the honest, for no one is completely honest, and not being able to see a bald-faced lie when you're the head of a very influential company can be devastating. And then there's you," the straight-line grin grew to something that actually looked like a normal smile. "You just say whatever comes to your mind, and it's more than obvious when you try to hide something, but you try anyways. It's amusing. And a bit of a relief." he jumped over my last checker. "You suck at this, by the way."

I was too busy trying to get over the effects a real smile had done to his face. He had looked like he was his seventeen years and not like a thirty-something CEO like he usually did. Something weird squirmed in the bottom of my stomach, and for the first time, I started to feel nervous and fell quiet. I avoided looking at him. Was he really taking me here as a friend? Could I trust myself around him, or was I a flimsy, fluttery thing like Conrad said I was?

"Joey, what did Blue-eyes destroy earlier?"

"Nothing." I said too quickly, knowing he'd see through it.

"Obviously."

"When I say 'nothing' that is Joey talk for 'I don't want to tell you, so back off."

"Yes, but I want to know, because I get the feeling it was what you really created your dragon for. And," he looked up at me all too seriously, hands picking up the checkers absentmindedly, "what could you possibly be so afraid of?"

"I wasn't afraid." I said.

"Sure."

"Okay, a little, but it's nothing bad, really. Besides, it's none of your business."

He shrugged. "Fine." He pulled out a stack of cards from under the table and we started a furious game of Speed—which I lost. And again. And again. And one more time. I cursed him and teased him some more about making it his hobby to boss everyone at anything, then he pointed out that Snap and Checkers hardly counts as everything. It's called exaggeration, you weirdo, but I sipped at my now warm cider and challenged him to War. No one wins at that.

It was then, ten minutes into a game that was going nowhere, talking about the idiosyncrasies of people and computer code, that he looked up at the time and started gathering the cards.

"We should get home before dinner." he said when I protested.

"It's that late?" I looked at the clock. Yes, it was. It was snowing heavier outside, and I could just make out the hump of snow covered cars through the windows. It made me smile. In my mind's eye, I imagined myself in front of the large fireplace in my dad's living room, reading a manga on the carpet as it blizzard outside. Man, my life was really good. It really was.

Seto didn't seem to agree with me though. He cursed quietly as we excited the coffee shop and he practically karate chopped the snow off of his Yaris. He told me to get inside while he cleared off the front windshield, but I ignored him and used my arm to get the snow off with him.

"Dang, did all this come down while we were in there? It could've only been an hour or so."

He didn't look impress. He almost made me nervous with the grumpy look on his face, but, like I said, it wasn't an unusual look for him. Probably a good thing, because if he smiled more often, I don't know if I'd be able to be around him anymore. He was handsome grumpy, but that one time he smiled...

"You hate snow." I said.

"I hate driving in it." he eased himself out into the parking lot and crunched his car up to main street. "Think you can point me to your house from here?"

"Wow, the stalker doesn't know where I live? I'm disappointed."

"Well, seeing as I'm not a stalker," but he didn't finish his sentence, turning his full attention to the almost white out conditions of the road, both hands on the steering wheel.

"If I had known it was going to be this bad," I said, but I didn't know how to say that. I only thought of the snow as an enjoyment, which would probably kill me the day I tried to drive in it myself.

"I knew there'd be a snowstorm this evening," he said.

"It is kinda dark outside."

I gave him the address of my house, he nodded, following after the red taillights of another car through the snow. I turned up the heat and started poking at his CD player. I took the CD it spat out.

"_Nickle Creek_?" I frowned. "What is that?"

"Music."

"What kind of music, smart one?"

"Bluegrass."

I had to take another look at him. Seto so did not strike me as a bluegrass sort of guy, not even a country sort of guy. Maybe more of a classical geek, or screamo heavy metal.

I told him so, which earned me a raised eyebrow off the side. He was quite good at that raised eyebrow thing.

"What do you listen to?" he asked.

"Electronica, rock, maybe a bit of the weirder Celtic stuff."

"Huh. Fits you perfectly." he gestured to the _Nickle Creek_ CD. "Try it. You might like it."

I didn't know how to take that, but I put it in and adjusted the volume. After the first song, I was sold. I had been expecting twangy banjos and old men singing about their dogs, not three kids singing in the fashion of old medieval ballads.

"Turn here, right?"

I looked up from my music induced daze. I thought I could see a sign, and squinted. Half covered in snow, I could just make out the last word.

"Yeah. Almost there." I glanced about. All I could see was white. Seto had even turned down his lights in order to see more clearly in the snow, which wasn't happening soon. "Maybe you should stay at my house once we get there. I can't see you making it home in all this."

"It's certainly not safe."

"Besides, my dad has extra rooms. He won't mind."

Seto said nothing, eyebrows furrowed and eyes narrowed in concentration.

My dad's manor (boy, that's weird to say, even in my head), was nestled on a low valley, rimmed by surrounding hills of woodland. It was weird for me, because having lived in the west the past few years, I had expected the east to be stuffed to the brim with people (they were all shaded dark red in those density population charts after all). It only occurred to me to wonder how we'd even find my dad's driveway when it started to become difficult to see the trees. I had opened my mouth to say something to Seto about it, when suddenly the car lurched down and too the side. There came a loud whoosh of snow against the car, the rev of the engine—a loud whack! The seat belt stopped me from being thrown out into the whiteness.

The Yaris stuck, pointing at a down angle, lights swallowed by snow. Seto was breathing hard and slapped the music off.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, Seto ran a hand through his mop of brown hair. Then, with a growl, he yanked the Yaris into reverse, just to be answered with the spinning of tires. The way forward was just a hill of white.

For once, my mind was blank, and I anxiously left Seto to curse and tug on his hair. Professionally cut or not, it now looked like a mess. Then, without warning, he opened the door, filling the car with a gale of cold air and snowflakes. I called out to him, just to get the door slammed in my face. Then, more afraid of feeling useless than his rage, I tightened my coat around me, pulled down my beanie over my ears, and stepped out as well.

The blizzard blowing about me was frightfully quiet.

"Oy! What happened!"

"We drove off the road," said Seto, "right into a lovely ditch." he scowled down at his tires. "Damn, if only I had some tire chains."

I frowned and looked around for the nearest tree, which wasn't far. I slopped over to it and reached for the nearest branch. Seto didn't need to ask what I was doing, and followed after to help. For being frozen stiff, the branches proved to be remarkably difficult to break off, and I was able to find some dead one's beneath the snow at the base.

By the time we had any sort of supply of branches, my fingers and face had gone numb. Together, we made a track of branches behind the Yaris's tires up to the road, which was mostly covered in snow.

"Get back in the car and call your father," he said when there was but a few feet more. I nodded and handed him what was left of my branches and trudged back down to the car. I slipped the last few feet and just caught myself from smashing my face onto the door.

Inside the car had become another dimension, warm, and filled with the noise of the purring engine and heater.

My beat up pink phone did it's wonders, and my dad picked up on the third ring. I really did hate the color pink.

"Hey, buddy. On your way home yet?"

"Um, actually," I explained the situation the best I could. He suggested the branch idea and was pleased to know we were already trying.

"Wow, this storm really hit. The weather forecast said nothing about it being this bad. I hate the snow." he said.

Funny thing was, I was stuck in it and still didn't hate it.

He told us to do our best to get out and to call him back when we couldn't get back up. He would trace us through the Yaris's GPS system (because my computer daddy could do stuff like that), just in case.

"Oh, and tell that Kaiba kid that he's welcome to stay with us. I don't think his parents would be too pleased if I let him go back out in this storm."

"I was thinking that myself, dad."

"I think I remember him, a way back, when I helped his parents with a program."

"Yeah, he said something like that."

The car door open. With a poof of gale Seto appeared, peppered with snow crystals and scowling. Dad seemed to hear it.

"Call me back if you can't get out."

I hung up. Seto geared up his Yaris and hit the gas. For a minute the tires spun and spun, and he jumped back out to check. Then, back in, and the Yaris moved a foot or so. I gave a happy cheer, but it was too soon. The tires spun out, and the Yaris ended up back with it's face in the snow.

Seto groaned with a forehead to his steering wheel. "Every time," he muttered. "Stupid snow."

"I'll just call my dad then."

He said nothing, so I popped open my phone, gave my dad the word, and proceeded to wait. At some point Seto reached over and turned off the heater. All the exercise he had got out in the cold had been enough.

"My dad insists you stay with us for the night, by the way."

Seto grunted.

"Look, it isn't that bad. It's been quite the adventure. I mean, we could have spun out of control and died! Woo!"

Seto turned his head on his hand to face me, giving me a flabbergasted expression. Having never seen him look truly disbelieving made me chuckle.

"We almost died, we're stuck in a blizzard, and you're laughing?" he said.

"It's not that bad. My dad's tracing our location through the Yaris's GPS system as we speak."

Seto frowned, looked as though he was about to argue, then he remembered who my father was. He had practically created the computer system that was in the Yaris, of course he could access it.

So we sat in silence for a bit with me humming nonsense songs now and then, watching the snow outside happily, and thinking about taking out my laptop to play with Blue-eyes. Seto just kept his chin on the steering wheel to glare morosely out into the storm.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. Thinking it my dad, I didn't even bother to check the caller I.D. and snapped it open to my ear.

"Hello?"

"Joey, where are you?"

A nasty cold sensation prickled it's way down my chest to writhe somewhere in my gut. My hands suddenly felt clammy in my gloves.

"Conrad?" I said, just to make sure.  
>"Yeah, it's me. Why haven't you been responding to me? I've been worried, are you okay?"<p>

Seto was looking at me now, his dark eyes wry beneath his sweep of wet bangs. I avoided looking at him, turning my face to the window besides me.

"I'm okay." I rattled the first excuse I could think of. "I—I just needed some time to myself, to think."

"To think about what? Joey, you told me this before, but when are you going to be done thinking?"

I heard a crinkle of pants as Seto sat up in his seat. My heart was thudding rather loudly.

"Look, this isn't really a good time." I muttered.

A cold silence on the other end. "Oh, I see."

"I don't think you can, have you seen a weather report for Domino? It's completely-"

"You're with a guy, aren't you? On a date? Don't try to lie to me, Joey, I saw you guys in the coffee shop. He's pretty tall, you must be pleased with yourself. Have you told him about all the other guys you plan on dating?"

Cold. And yet I was sweating all over. I didn't want to hear this, it wasn't true.

"We weren't on a date, he's my..." it hit me, "You saw us? You're here?"

"That's why I was wondering where you were, it's blizzarding outside, but I need to see you."

"You're in Domino?" My voice was rising in pitch. I slapped a hand over my mouth to stop it.

Another cold silence. "Oh. He doesn't know about me, does he?"

I wanted to protest, to say we weren't together, that we were just friends and that Seto didn't need to know, that he would never understand our world of two anyways, but I could practically feel Seto's eyes on me and was starting to feel a little panicked.

"I really can't talk right now, I'll talk later."

"Oh, yes, don't let me ruin your date." he spat.

I snapped the phone closed and yanked off my gloves. I stuffed my phone into my bag and refused to meet Seto probing eyes.

"Who's Conrad?" he said.

"No one."

"Joey," his forehead wrinkled in one of his serious, low brow stares. "You're pale, and if you don't want someone in the car to hear your entire conversation you should get a nicer phone. I heard everything."

The cold increased. I had the sudden urge to bust open the door and run for it.

"Joey," second time with the name, gal, this was getting scary, "he was the one you set Blue-eyes on, isn't he? Who is he? And why are you so afraid of him?"

"It has nothing to do with you, and I swear I'm not some kind of serial dater." my voice was shaking. This couldn't be happening. I really liked Seto, I thought it was going so well, I though we could be friends—that's all I wanted! Friends who talked to me, friends who would take me out to sip hot drinks and play games with me. And with how quick things spread at school...I covered my eyes.

_I don't want to be alone._

"The thought never crossed my mind once." he said.

"Why? How? You hardly know me."

"I'm observant, remember? You turned down Tristan when he asked you out, you keep yourself distant from everyone, you don't even show an interest in boys—Joey, put your hands down, you're acting like a child."

I felt his hot hand on my wrist, but I held tight, I pressed my hands to my eyes. This couldn't be happening. My eyes burned, my insides swirled with dread.

"Stalker," I muttered quietly, in an attempt to lighten the situation, which he totally was. How did he know about Tristan?

"Joey, why are you so afraid of him?"

"Please forget about it."

"Not if he's in Dominp—he followed you here, didn't he? What kind of crazy guy would do that? Is he some sort of crazy abusive ex-boyfriend, because if so-"

"No!" I protested weakly, but at the same time I didn't know. "He's...you wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"He keeps me in a world a two, my best friend, he was the only one I had to talk to back home about...about everything, he knew what was happening to me. No one would just sit and talk to me, except him, he knows me, Seto. He knows me."

"And what does he do with that?"

"No, he loves me, he wouldn't hurt me, he only tells me the truth about how he feels when I'm so cruel-but I kept hurting, and the other girls and Tonya, and I would...I would flirt with other guys, just because he wasn't around, and I didn't even know I was flirting until I told Conrad about it, I'm a whore, I know it, he's my best friend, but I..I'm bad, I'm wrong." I slapped my jaw closed. He shouldn't hear this. No one should hear this, I wasn't some soap opera episode. This was reality, and I shouldn't be so over dramatic.

"Then why are you so afraid of him?"

Seto pulled off my hands. I was sniffing. Tears poured down where my palms have been blocking them. I didn't want him to see. Not like this again. I wasn't a cry baby, I swear, I really was strong.

He was staring right at me. I wanted to run, he'd be disgusted and I'd lose my favorite friend. No one wants to be around some emo girl with a bad ex-boyfriend, no one wants drama.

"He said you weren't talking to him," he said softly, "why? If he's your best friend, if he loves you, why did you run?"

Quietly, afraid that I'd just be making excuses, I tried to be naked with my reasoning in order to put Conrad in the best light—he had suffered enough by me, after all. "It hurt. Talking to him, having him so far away, and then he killed...I was so bad, I felt so alone, I didn't want to be alone, but we'd be talking all day, and he'd never be around and he'd get mad if I left to do something with my friends, because he's lonely too. I just...I just wanted to stop hurting."

"How was he hurting you?"

"I don't know, things he says, does, the other girls, dragons—but it's my fault."

"Other girls?"

"And now I've hurt him again, now I'll never be able to make it up, I've been so selfish." I closed my eyes and tried to pull my hands back. If he didn't let me hide my face soon I was going to run, right out into the white-out blizzard. "Please, Seto, this has nothing to do with you. You wouldn't understand."

"Oh no, I think I understand perfectly." I didn't like the sound of his voice. "Is that why you moved in with your father? To get away from him?"

"I was already away from him."

"But now he's in Domino? He saw you in the coffee shop?"

I yanked my hands back and pressed my face into my forearms. I was trembling so hard it hurt. I had so much to make up for, now. He'd come all this way—sixteen hours by car-just to find I had forgotten about him, flirted with other guys, had been so close.

Seto would leave. I couldn't be around Atem and Tristan. I'd be alone. Yugi might leave as well once she learned how screwed up I was inside. I didn't want to be this way, I wanted to be happy, I wanted to be normal.

And now Seto could see.

"Why'd you move in with your father?" he asked quietly.

I moaned and then attempted a try at lightheartedness, a change in topic. "Honestly, Seto, can't I keep anything to myself?"

"I'm worried."

"There's no need to be."

"Joey, there's a manipulative guy who _terrifies_ you—and don't you try to say otherwise—who has followed you all the way over to Domino City. Where did he live before?"

"Arizona."

"Exactly. He's come here for you and, gah, look at yourself! Joey, I may be a complete ass, but I'm not going to ignore you when you look like this. If he scares you this much, I don't care if you think its your fault, you should tell your dad."

"NO!" Seto flinched, and I tried to give him an apologetic smile through my arms. "No, way no. My dad hasn't talked to me in years, Seto. He doesn't even remember what's my favorite food or color, and he doesn't even know what's been going on in my life either. Besides, he hates conflict, that's why he handed over custody to my mom without a fight, and I don't think I've ever even seen him mad or sad in my life."

"Then why did you move up here? You said Conrad is the only one who knows what was happening to you, was something bad happening to you?"

"Seto, leave it alone."

"Joey-"

"Please!" I clung to the roots of my hair. "I don't want to scare you away!"

I was able to see a bit of his face through my arms and from the glow of the dashboard. He looked surprised, as though that wasn't what he expected. I felt even more humiliated than before. My life wasn't that bad, I hadn't been beaten or raped, I was just fine. I just didn't want him to see how badly I was dealing with it. I only wanted him to see the Joey I wanted to be, cool, funny, collected, not this strange wreck of a girl I did my best to keep in the closet. Besides, didn't all teenagers think their lives suck? Didn't all teenagers had their own little angst emos cutting themselves in the closet? Have problems with their parents? Couldn't do anything right?

I wasn't special. I didn't want to be. And I didn't want to give anyone the chance to tell me that I was wrong to hurt when I already told myself that.

A loud rumbling came over the sound of the snow and the Yaris. Seto looked up through the window.

"I think it's your dad." he said.

I stretched out from the ball against the door I had ended up in and did my best to dry off my face. Hopefully it would be dark enough outside, and dad wouldn't notice. I tried to ignore Seto watching me.

Dad appeared at the door, dressed in an ugly yellow snowcoat.

"Kay, kid, I got a mark on your Yaris. We can pick it up in the morning. Grab your stuff and hop into the monster!"

"The monster?" he looked at me. Behind him my dad smiled and waved at me.

"It's a truck of his," I said, waving back awkwardly. "He's a little weird."

"Like you?"

"Sure. Just grab your stuff, already, I'm hungry and I want to get home to escape to some manga."


	7. Return of the Sith

**The intensity continues. And don't worry, I will update frequently. I'm sort of a mad hatter when it comes to writing-it's kind of like my drug. That totally came out wrong...**

**And I'm up late tonight anyways because my poor baby boy is sick. :( coughing and turning in his sleep. His first birthday is Christmas Eve, didja know? No lie. Pretty sure Santa wasn't the man who delivered him, though...**

Chapter 7

My dad's roaring Ram plowed through the snow like nothing. It wasn't purple like the Camero, but a strange yellow-orange. I wondered what my dad had with weird colored cars.

Seto and I didn't talk the rest of the way, though I answered my dad's questions cheerily. It helped. I could almost forget. I was calming down, and that was good. Once we got to the house I walked up to my room to change and let dad be host to Seto, grabbed a few of my manga and one of the plush blankets, and took them downstairs to the living room where, as though sensing my wish, a warm roaring fire had been lit. I plopped myself down, nested up into the fluff of blankets, and pulled out a manga.

Denise came up to me. "Would you like me to bring you dinner?"

"Oh, please, if you don't mind."

"Of course not. I wouldn't want to tear you away from such a cozy place, especially in this weather."

She returned with a bowl of homemade tomato soup, at just the right temperature, and I sipped it up. My manga was getting good. The hero had found out he wasn't human at all, but some sort of extraterrestrial alien who had been mistaken for a god, and therefore had complicated his relationship with his human girlfriend. Jeeze, these Japanese people could come up with some really crazy shit ideas. It was awesome.

I didn't realize Seto was there until his hand reached into my peripheral vision and took one of my mangas. I ignored him as he read the back, snorted, and put it back down.

"I can't believe you like this corny stuff."

"I like what I like and there's nothing you can do about it." I took the last sip of my soup and put it down. "Dad show you to your room?"

"Yes. He's as talkative as I remember, even though he kept saying he had work to get back to."

"That's my dad."

My phone vibrated in my bag, which I had carelessly dropped by the door. I did my best to pretend to not hear it. It was just vibrating, after all.

Seto got up though. I didn't think anything of it until I heard the all to familiar click of my old pink phone.

"Put it down, Seto, or I'll stick your fingers in warm water while you sleep."

He said nothing. I could hear the click of buttons, which amazed me. I never knew my cell was so loud, because my dad's living room wasn't small.

He kept clicking.

"You rude, prying jerkweed, get your nose out of my phone! Don't you have any manners?"

I heard a 'hmmph,' and he dropped the phone back into my bag. Then he had the gall to come back in and throw himself onto one of the sofas.

"You should tell your dad." he said.

"Yes. Thank you."

"I mean it. That guy's no good."

"I'm a big girl, you're not my mom, will you let me read my manga, please? Besides, I've already created Blue-eyes, shouldn't that tell you enough?"

"You should tell him to buzz off."

"I told him to leave me be, I thought that'd be enough."

"For how rude you can be without thinking, I thought you'd be more capable of being mean."

"Seto...please."

He fell silent again and I happily returned to my manga, all too satisfied with stuffing whatever had happened in the Yaris deep down into a dark little box, where I locked it up with double metal tape, chains, and cables. Now I could enjoy the growing howl of the wind outside in peace.

I barely noticed when Seto leaned down and picked up one of my manga. When I next looked over he had his nose in it. All too glad to have his attention off me, I returned to my own world. Denise came in every once in a while to throw wood on the fire, which I thanked her profusely for. At some point my eyes were annoying me with itching, my head felt heavy, and I took a moment to rest my forehead on the manga. I didn't want to go to sleep till I had finished, and I only had maybe ten more pages to go, not to mention I was at a climax. Next thing I knew, however, I was being woken up by Seto dropping the manga he had taken from me next to me, waking me with a start.

"You going to sleep out here?"

I rubbed my eyes. I shouldn't have been asleep long. Maybe, like, five minutes. I couldn't even remember when it had come on me. I stretched, told Seto good night, gathered my manga, and went to get my bag. Seto threw my plush blanket over my head before I started up the stairs and I dragged it after me like some sort of royal cape. At least he had been kind enough to help me pack my tired self up like a mule.

I barely had the mind to change out of my school uniform before collapsing on my bed, curling up in the heavenly bliss of a many fluffy blankets, and slipping back into sleep.

At some point in the night I partially woke to a warm pressure on my head and the smell of pine. But before I could even think a single thought about it, I fell back asleep.

# $%^&%$# $%^

"Why are you avoiding me?"

I glared from my observation point on a counter in Anatomy, my laptop on my lap. The teacher had agreed to let me do online virtual dissections while Seto continued on where we had left off. Seto would get extra credit for completing alone, though, but I was still required to stay in class to at least try to get accustomed to the stupid smell of formaldehyde.

Seto, at the moment, was just in front of me at our old corner with the innards of the monkey hidden behind him. Folders had been put up in my direction so I wouldn't see.

"I'm embarrassed." I said, always having had a policy of bluntness. "It's twice now that you've seen me as a snotty mess. I have to regain my dignity somehow."

He snorted.

"What's so funny?" I did my best to look threatening.

"That you assume to have dignity without a filter between your brain and mouth." Before I could think of something to defend myself with against that, he said, "It's been a whole five days. How long do you plan on being embarrassed?"

"Until you tell me what you've done to my phone!"

"What _I_ did to your phone?"

"Don't play dumb," I growled, shuffling through my bag for it and snapping it out. The old pink phone, which had been reliable to a point for the past five years, had been brainwashed and the screen turned into a blotchy, orangey mess that could barely be used. The only numbers I had been able to recover were my mother's, Yugi's, Tristan's, Atem's, Seto's, and my father's. Not only that, but I was finding, to my dismay, that it had more than a few glitches when it came to incoming calls. If Conrad had called me, I didn't know, and Blue-eyes had already torn apart any traces of the instant chat program that had somehow weaseled itself out of my recycling bin. As for emails, Conrad had been blocked long ago, but I was too afraid to see if he had already worked around those blocks as well.

Seto had his poker face on. Or, at least, that's what I told myself. There were only so many expressions the guy circulated through. "What makes you think I did that?"

"Because you were messing with it before it got like this _and_ you're a computer dweeb."

He turned back to the cat. "You don't even know what I do on my computer. For all you know, I'm writing poetry."

"I thought you said you did spreadsheet programs?"

"I was being sarcastic. What sane high school student would program spreadsheets as a pastime?"

I glared at him, stuffed my phone back. I was mad, but the shame stopped me from lashing out. Not to mention I had never been one to lash out at all. My anger usually sizzled, boiled, and barked, though I did have my fair share of occasions where I finally bit in.

"You're not fair, Seto."

Something about my tone made him pause. Then he turned around with a floppy, purple organ in his hand. I felt the familiar rushing noise in my ears and slapped my hands over my eyes.

"Good crap, Joey, really?"

"Just put that back, please." My face felt hot under my hands. I began to regret putting on extra make up this morning under Yugi's direction. She had also pulled me into the bathroom that morning to see if I had managed to do the knot like hair do she had taught me Friday evening. It made me extremely uncomfortable. Looking in mirrors and messing with my head more than necessary felt awkward. There was only so much someone could do with their hair and face.

"Get over your embarrassment and I'll put the liver back."

"You're kidding."

"I can hold this liver all day."

"...you're an idiot. I'll get over it when I feel like it."

I felt something cold and slimy touch my arm. The sensation of ants speeding up my spine made me cringe. My breath hitched.

"Okay! Not embarrassed! Not embarrassed!"

I heard him chuckle, but he removed the liver. When I lowered my hands the purply organ was gone and Seto had his back to me once more. I glared at a spot between his shoulders.

"That was cruel and unusual punishment, Kaiba."

"You're the one who decided to take an Anatomy class." he sounded amused.

I inwardly sizzled at him and went back to my assignment, though in all reality I was secretly fiddling with some new code while Blue-eyes watched. The little white dragon tapped it's tail against the start button, following each movement of my cursor. Every few minutes or so he'd get bored and start clawing at the recycling bin or some other shortcut icon, in which I'd have to chase him off with the cursor.

"It's still not fair," I said quietly.

"What?"

I kept my eyes to my code. "That you know so much about me, have seen me at my worse, and I don't even know what you've been programming since I've gotten here."

He didn't say anything to this, nor for the rest of the class.

Atem and Tristan, who had been all too happy to walk me through the ins and outs of the cafeteria on Friday and Monday, when I had been avoiding Seto, seem to almost deflate when I moved to leave as soon as I finished my plate. They had already been acquainted with Blue-eyes and knew that's what I did in the library, but Atem had brought his Duel Monsters deck to play with and wanted as many people as he could get to play with him. Tea, as usual, hardly gave me any of her attention, which she had given all to Atem.

Sometimes I questioned that boy's IQ for not noticing her.

Tristan did all sorts of entertaining pleads. He hadn't taken rejection hard at all, and if I didn't know better, I would wonder if he hadn't cared. I only got him to leave me alone and let me go by promising on my life and blood that I would go to his birthday party that weekend.

I couldn't see why it would matter if his dad was of the mafia, at least in concern to a birthday party. I mean, honestly, it wasn't like his dad was going to bust in with Tommy guns on his own son's party and start spraying lead.

I sat down at our usual table in the library just to find Seto sitting there with his computer closed and an air of about to give a presentation—or tell me he had just murdered someone. I would totally not be surprised.

"Give me your word you won't tell anyone." he said without intro.

"Tell anyone what? That you're asexual?" I smirked.

Not even a twitch. "What I do, with computers, that is."

"There's got to be a fancier word for leet keyboard huggers like us," I leaned forward, chin in my palm. "I won't tell a soul, Seto."

He nodded and leaned forward. For a moment I had the thrilling, horrifying thought that he was about to kiss me, especially when I got a good whiff of his leathery, pine boy musk.

"I'm a white hat hacker, of sorts."

"White hat...what?"

He sighed. I got a face full of his scent concentrated. Shouldn't I be grossed out by that? Well, at least I knew he brushed his teeth. "It's a hacker that often hacks for, um, more morally driven reasons, like helping people break into their own computers when they accidentally lock themselves out. The best of the white hat hackers are often hired out by the government to hack into, well, whatever they're needed to hack into."

"So, like that one dude in _Core_, the one who's price was a lifetime of Hotpockets and the complete collection of _Xena_ tapes?"

He blinked, sat back, and blinked again. Then he shook his head. "I'm not even going to bother. Sure, like him."

"You can hack the government?" I was impressed.

"Weren't you listening? I'm not that type of hacker, and I'm not even good enough to hack the pentagon or anything like that, or, at least, I've never thought it worth my time to try."

"Oh," still impressed, "so, what kind of things do you hack?"

He made a long list, half of which I didn't understand, but which I did my best to grasp. Though he had backed away, he still whispered to me, and I had to ask at one point that, if he was a good hacker, why it had to be a secret?

"There's no such thing as a 'good' hacker, technically," he said, "the world of the web is nothing but information, and being able to bypass others securities to their deepest, most deadly secrets is only a liability for others. I'd rather not have that hanging around my reputation. Besides, I'm suppose to be studying up to inherit my parent's company, as head of hospital management."

"That sounds so boring, though, at least in comparison to a hacker." Then I smirked at him, not very nicely, though. "So you _did_ screw with my phone."

He grimaced. "I didn't say that."

"Just admit it."

"Fine, yes."

"Damn it, Seto!"

"Just ask your father for a new one, I don't see why you're so upset. That things so old I'm surprised it still even works."

"That's not the point, and you know it. You don't just go around hacking other people's phones, is that why people think you don't have any friends?"

He rolled his eyes and reached for a chocolate cookie he had brought from home. "Oh, please, I have friends. They just don't happen to come to this school."

"Good thing too, or you might screw their phones up."

"Probably." he opened up his laptop. I heard it bing awake.

"Oh no you don't," I reached out to close it, but he aptly dodged me. "Don't hide behind your screen like that, why did you hack my phone?"

I could feel his waves of irritation, and maybe something else I couldn't place, as he carefully avoided my eyes. "I wasn't going to do anything, but then I read the texts he was sending you and-"

"You read my texts!"

"I was trying to protect you!" he said, nearly shouted.

Startled, I thumped against the back of my chair. Seto didn't look at me, his eyes glued to the screen as though I weren't there, clicking away at something with his mouse. I never thought I'd see the day when Seto got close to blushing, though I didn't know if a slight pinking of the ears counted as a blush. In that moment, I really saw something in this arrogant, handsome, anti-social genius that hadn't really occurred to me.

I smiled. "You like me."

All concentration on the computer broke and he started on me—one of the most freaking hilarious things I had seen from him yet, I swear. "What? How does that—anyone would have-"

"Calm down, mister asexual, I didn't mean like that. I mean as a friend, jeeze," I crossed my arms across my chest, amused. "I'm not that full of myself. I'm just enjoying the fuzzies knowing you think of me as a friend like I do of you."

His scowl was back, and the pink on his ears had spread. "I bought you apple cider, weirdo."

I shook my head. I suddenly felt kind of sad. "Seto, I've had a lot of friends. I've been to a lot of places. I don't mean those kinds of friends, the one's you meet and have fun with and share the same interests. I mean, well, the real ones. The ones that hack your phones because they're afraid of you getting hurt, even though they know you'll be mad at them. I can count on one hand how many of those I've had, if any." I leaned down to fumble with my bag for a distraction. I wasn't good with this mushy Oprah stuff. "You're not socially awkward, I think. You just know society and people too well. You're picky with your friends. If I'm wrong, please stop me, I've embarrassed myself enough as it is."

He didn't say anything. Even though he still stared intently at his computer, his fingers barely moved and his eyes had frozen in place. I wanted to laugh, maybe throw something at him, but before I could figure out which, he unstuck himself and was whizzing away.

I took out my own computer and was able to get in a few lines of code on my new dragon before the bell rang.

On our way down the stairs of the library, he said to me, "I don't like that guy."

I didn't have to ask who he meant. "A lot of people don't."

"How did you get involved with him, then?" I could see something like incredulity on his still face.

"Because," I looked to my hand, "when you're the new kid as often as me, and a weirdo at that, you can't really be picky with your friends, especially..." I stopped right there. I was making myself out to be the same kind of awkward, anti-social freak as those I often reached out to make friends with. Seto may not think I have any dignity, but I liked to believe that I did.

He held me back at the foot of the stairs with a look. Seto was not a touchy guy.

"Okay, as friends, I can see. You can make friends with just about anyone if you try." his eyes narrowed. "But love?"

I shook a bit. Something cold was in my stomach, and I once more looked away from him.

"He talked to me," I said quietly, "that's how he gets to you. He was kind, warm, understanding, everything I wanted. And...I was so lonely."

Before I could say anymore, still hot around the neck, still ashamed to stand before Seto, I walked off, careful not to seem too sad or depressed. I had a great life, after all. Hadn't I just enjoyed a wonderful night in front of the fire with some manga? Hadn't I finally found an actual friend? A real friend?

I more than threw myself into the fun, shallow chatter that Yugi offered me, for that was what it was, I realized. I didn't know about what went on in Yugi's head late at night, and she didn't know what went on in mine. I knew about her family, about her likes and dislikes, but I didn't know about the things that bothered her, like she didn't know about what bothered me. Maybe that's how most teenagers were. Maybe the 'emo' ones were just especially honest, while the rest of us hid away anything painful and tried to put on a happy face.

Then I'd hear some girl next to me complaining about how she couldn't stand this or that, how her life was so hard, how her friends would bewail that they were lucky not to be her, and I'd sink into myself with a laugh. That girls life, compared to mine...was a freaking dream. A piece of cake. Perhaps if she had spent a night in the darkness with those buldging eyes of my step father and the banging, the yelling, the demeaning, she would change her mind about daddy not letting her have the phone she wanted.

And then I'd shake myself. No, I couldn't think like that. I couldn't demean others hardships. Wasn't that exactly what I was afraid of? I couldn't be so cruel.

"Joey?"

I blinked and looked over at Atem, having missed the entire last part of our conversation. He had his bright, weird colored eyes tucked under worried brows, and the shadow of an 'o' of concern on his lips.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"You've been out of it a lot lately." he said. "Usually you're really chatty and funny. What have you been thinking about so much? Is something wrong?"

I forced a laugh. "Aw gosh, Atem, why do you suppose me thinking means something bad? I do use my brain occasionally, you know. Just because some think I'm white trash doesn't mean I think like it."

His 'o' melted into a frown. "I don't like when you mention that—when you call yourself that. I don't like how Tristan encourages you."

"He doesn't encourage me. Humor is how you make something mean nothing, take it's power away, you know?"

He shook his head. "I really admire your confidence. How do you do it?"

"I eat a lot of Sunchips."

That did the trick. The worried look melted away and he tipped his head back in one of his rare, deep, real laughs, not the awkward chuckle he often did.

My dad's purple Camero waited for me next to the gates. He waved at Atem and me, hollering in his usual bubbly way. I skipped down to him. Atem padded after me, still chuckling.

"You're a lot like him." was the last thing I heard from him before he waved good-bye.

Dad chatted to me about the phone shopping we were now heading out on. He went through various phone models, talking about their pros and cons, with me mostly listening and putting input when I could.

And as my dad pulled the Camero through the gates, I saw him. Broad shouldered, like a square, dark hair pulled back against his neck, his dark eyes naturally following the outlandish purple Camero in the sea of black luxary cars.

Conrad saw me. He met my eyes.

My dad's words vanished into the background. Something dark wanted to drag my breath to my stomach and leave it there, depriving me of air.

How had he found me? And then I remembered telling him excitably about the private school my dad had offered to send me to. Because, as my best friend, I had told him everything. Even though I had been thinking of taking some space between us, I had never expected him to follow me here from Arizona.


	8. Clone Wars

**Lost sleep and cuddle time with my adorable husband to get this to you guys. You may now shower me with gratitude. **

**The asexual Set draws on his cloney powers. **

Chapter 8

I came home with a purple smart phone in hand and thanking my father profusely. I had never before owned something so nice and couldn't quite believe that he had gotten it to me without a second thought. My dad, being his bubbling self, didn't think much on it and was just pleased that he had done something so well. Inwardly I knew I shouldn't begrudge him for forgetting me when I needed him most. Though it still was there, the hurt, the anger, I simply didn't think about it, because I wanted him to like me. He was my dad after all. Space cadet, silly, and way too into his own world, but his eyes didn't pop, he didn't yell for no reason, or beat me down when I meant no harm. My father was harmless, and therefore, I loved him more than my step father already.

But curling up in front of the fireplace once more with another set of manga, I still felt cold with unease. I found myself reading the same panel over and over and finally went to putting numbers in my new phone instead. Since I had switched over to my dad's service, my number had changed, and I quickly got underway to telling my mom and friends that. My mom, in turn, called me up to give me the numbers of my grandparents and aunts.

Somewhere through this, Seto texted me.

_Good._

I rolled my eyes and awkwardly texted back. It was weird having a touchscreen keyboard rather than actual buttons. It was nice not having to press '7' four times in order to get an 's' though.

_Complete sentences, smart ass, or no one can understand you, _I told him and went back to putting in numbers and assigning ring tones.

The general text tone went off and I checked Seto's reply.

_I thought it'd be obvious. Blue-eyes wouldn't fit into a phone yet._

The unease tightened in my chest. Should I tell him? But that was ridiculous. Conrad didn't pose a threat to me at all. I knew he wouldn't hurt me, and if he tried I could always give him the old fashion knee to the groin, though a punch in the face would be more satisfying. Besides all that, the worst he'd do is say the truth about how I had pretty much abandoned him and show me the pathetic, worthless person I really was, but that was none of Seto concern anyways. So, instead I got busy involving Set in a conversation about how weird it was to have a fancy phone and random tidbits about Tristan's birthday party coming up this weekend—which was to be held at Atem's house. I expected him to say something about oh el son o' Mafia, but he just sent me the usual one word responses. Atem's were full of 'lol's, Yugi's was peppered with happy tidbits of 'about time,' leaving Tristan to respond to my quippy jokes with equal enthusiasm.

But it still bothered me. Why had Conrad come here? Why was he at my _school_?

My heart was doing that weird tightening, squirmy thump feeling. It made me feel faintly nauseous. Shouldn't I be flattered that he came all this way? But it only frightened me. Was Conrad worse than I knew?

Maybe I should call him—no, Seto did have a point. But I should talk to him, try to reason with him, assure him, maybe figure out what he was thinking coming all the way here (though I didn't want to know).

I hugged my dad, chatted to him about the next day, then headed up to bed. In my room I closed the door and slipped onto my bed with my laptop. With a deep breath that didn't calm me at all, I flipped open my laptop. I went to release Blue-eyes, then changed my mind. I had already put it into his code to attack anything to do with Conrad. So, with clammy hands, I opened up my email browser.

After a week it had gotten full. But there, on the top, marked as priority mail, was the one email Conrad had managed to push past my blocks.

I clicked it.

It was long, as I expected, and which was like him. It said all that I expected and some worse than I expected. I was crying half way through like a complete boob, hating myself, hating and loving the feel of the world of two I had left behind. This was stupid. This was so fucking stupid.

I tried to explain to him shortly that, no, I hadn't been on a date. Seto was just a friend, to which Conrad readily responded to incredulously. He then told me I was being unfair, whorish, even, and that I couldn't ever be jealous of him hanging out with girls now, or even dating them, as he had done while I had been gone to comfort himself. He had fallen into bed again with the dark beauty I knew so well, due to my mischance, due to my disappearance—even though he still loved me with all his heart. He had only used her, which he knew was wrong. He only had wanted to-

I clicked on Blue-eyes's icon. The dragon barely had time to puff before it spotted the email, growled, and pounced. I didn't stay to watch, but locked myself in my bathroom and turned on the shower. Afterwards, I finished what homework I had, then played _Legend of Zelda_ until I passed out on the beanbag. Not the most refined or romantic comfort, but hey, it worked.

I woke up to a call from Yugi, which was strange, because from what I understood of Yugi she hated mornings like a three year old hates spinach. Suddenly fearing for her life, I answered.

"Hey, Joey." she said, and instantly I knew she had been crying, despite her attempts to hide it.

"Woa, Yug, you okay?"

"Why do you assume that because I call you it means something's wrong."

I felt myself giving the wall across from me a dead pan look, even though I knew she couldn't see it. "It's 6:30. Didn't you come up with all those quick hair do's you taught me because you hated getting up in the morning?"

"Sleep is important for the development of the brain, Joey."

"What's wrong—and don't say nothing, because I can hear you sniffing."

"I have a cold."

"Yeah right, just tell me already."

There were a couple of awkward seconds filled up with her sniffling. It made me want to suck my arms through the phone and give her a bit ol' hug, the kind that crack your ribs. Whoever made someone as cute and nice as Yugi cry was going to get a big old boot to the head from Joey Wheeler, and it was only lucky for them that the only pair of boots I owned didn't have heels. Heels were the pits.

"I, well, it's nothing really."

"It's something if you're upset, it doesn't matter how others might think of it." Weird, coming from me, I realized. "Look, if you don't want to tell me the details, just tell me who I need to kill."

"You don't have to kill anyone, Joey, but thanks for the thought."

"Well?"

Another few seconds, another sniff. "Well, see, I was texting Atem last night after you got me his phone number."

Oh, yeah, that had happened, hadn't it? What had amused me the most was that Atem had known exactly who I was talking about and more than happy to surrender his phone number to me in the name of getting to know Yugi. If I hadn't known better, I'd say he was positively giddy—but I didn't want to get Yugi's hopes up. I wasn't that type of girl. Only pass on the gossip if it's worth it's weight in gold, with tangible proof to go along with it.

"It was going well and all, and, oh my gosh Joe, I love him so much." her voice broke. "He's just as wonderful as I imagined! But, I can't remember how we got to the topic, but he mentioned that there's this girl he really, really likes, that he's liked for ages, and asked me if I could give him some advice and...aw, Joey, when I asked about her—she doesn't sound anything like me! She's so wonderful, I couldn't ever compete, like I could ever compete with anyone-"

"Woa, hang on there tiny, how do you know he wasn't describing you?"

"Please, Joey, you think I wouldn't recognized myself?"

"Most girls I know can't when other people describe them. I'm the only chick I know of that doesn't think I'm either a)fat, b)ugly, or c)the most unwanted creature on the planet. Is that really what you're crying over? I mean, that's okay if you are, but really, you shouldn't lose hope. I havn't told you this before, but Atem was really excited when I told him you were interested in his number."

I heard a small gasp on the other end. "You told him it was me? Oh, Joey!"

"You would have seemed like a complete creep if I hadn't, Yug, I did it in your best interest. But honestly, cheer up! No need to get all dumb on yourself now. Besides," and I could feel the sincere smile stretching my face and warming my gut. "You're the cutest, kindest, funnest girl I've ever known. I mean that, Yugi." And I did. I wanted us to become best friends. Though we weren't the deepest of friends now, and though we didn't tell each other everything yet, Yugi had made a start with calling me about Atem, even if it was, in my opinion, rather silly. But I wanted her to tell me all her silly troubles. I wanted her to trust me. Then, maybe, one day, I could trust her with my even stupider troubles as well.

I told her I'd see her in gym and we could, I don't know, do some voodoo love ritual while the anal gym teacher wasn't looking. That made her laugh.

I hung up and sat there for a minute, staring at the morning greyness peaking into my tower windows.

I ate a homemade breakfast with my dad, made by Denise, and like every morning it just reiterated to me just how awesome a turn my life had taken, despite not having the best of mornings. I told my dad about the party, and he seemed happy to allow me to go, which just struck me as odd. Where was the 'no drugs, no sex, no looking in the wrong direction' teens were famous for getting when they left the house at any time? On the passing, as we got into the Camero for him to drop me off at school, I mentioned a call I had gotten from my mom. She had told me she was moving—again. Though I expected him to say nothing to this, he surprised me by asking whether we should be happy about that or not. It was a remarkably thoughtful question.

"No." I said honestly.

My dad looked sympathetic, which made me feel warm and forgive him just a little bit more. "I'm sorry to hear that. Things still not good at your mom's house?"

So he had known? Good feeling gone.

"As far as I can tell."

"Sad."

He didn't say anything more about that, abruptly changing the subject. Probably ran out of bravery at that point.

Atem instantly picked up on my troubled mood when I stepped out of the Camero while keeping an eye out for a certain black-haired skinny someone.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Just stuff back home." I shrugged, hoping that would be enough to deter him.

"Like what?"

"Awkward stuff, dude. Just my mom being stupid." Even as I said it, I regretted it. I loved my mom. She would cry to hear me say that.

"Parents do that." he said. And, probably finally getting that I didn't want to talk about it, he went on to ask me about what I planned to give Tristan for his birthday. I quietly cursed and asked him for ideas, which he was all too happy to give to me. A part of me almost thought about asking Atem straight out what he thought of Yugi, but I squashed the thought before it could slip out of my mouth, like everything did. I didn't want to embarrass Yugi in any way, even if I couldn't see why she would be. It wasn't like Atem would think her a freak for liking him. If anything, he'd be flattered. Well, at least I would be. If I was a guy. Or a lesbian—which I'm not.

Whatever.

My first few classes passed without incident. To my joy and relief, the dissection unit had ended and the teacher went back to presentations about what he had seen in our monkey dissections. Since it was all review to most of us, Seto and I found ourselves huddled together over my laptop, watching my newest creation being sniffed and prodded by Blue-eyes while he dinged speech bubbles that warned me of an unknown program. The unknown program in questions was a sleek, skinny black plated dragon with slitted red eyes that I had named Red-eyes. We talked via the notepad's on our separate computers so the teacher wouldn't hear our conversation.

"She's a spy dragon, I colored her like a ninja," I typed happily. "I used the idea of Blue-eyes being able to go from one computer to another to base her core objective. Right now I think she'll just be a sort of mailman, 'cause I can send her to computers, and so far I'm trying to upload all of the language knowledge into her. When I'm finished I've been thinking about going to try and figure out how to get her to turn invisible so she can pop over without being seen, maybe take screen shots to take back with her. Not sure what use that will be, but it would be fun."

"That's...completely devious." he typed, and he looked impressed, which was something. "How do you plan on protecting her from the computer itself? I mean, anti-malware and firewalls do exist, even if anti-virus programs are just a hoax."

"I don't know. I haven't gotten that far."

"You are just starting her after all, which gets me thinking, didn't you tell me you had made more of these dragons before?"

"Yeah, but they were more like pets, I guess. Most of them were just able to look cute and fetch things for me, like a search program. But Blue-eyes's wasn't the first of my protector dragons."

"What happened to the first?"

"Conrad killed her." I said, hoping he'd stop there.

He frowned. "He deleted it? Why'd he have it in the first place?"

"Because she was there to help him with his pornography addiction. She attacked anything with certain keywords that could connect to porn." and to stop him from asking farther, I said, "He said she was glitchy, that she kept attacking stuff he was working on that wasn't porn. But I checked her history. You'd think the dumdum would empty his recycle bin after ripping out her code and deleting her, since I didn't tell him how to turn her off. I don't see how anything he could be working on had to do with hot lesbians."

Seto didn't respond for a time after that. For a little while I thought he went back to taking notes, so I had gone back to preoccupying myself with uploading Red-eyes's signature to Blue-eyes's recognition system so he would stop bugging me.

When he closed his laptop at the end of class, though, his eyes were all too serious on me.

"But he's gone now." he said.

Rather than answering him, I said, "Why so serious?"

"Because he used you. Don't tell me his addiction didn't hurt you. Do you want me to laugh it off and joke about it like your other friends? Pretend that an addiction to lust and sex like an animal is healthy, even normal? Hardly." He almost sounded offended.

But, no, because then that wouldn't be Seto. In all reality, I could feel the memory of the pain pushing against the thin veil I had put up to cut me off from it. Finding my dragon dead with porn in its teeth had been the breaking point for me, the reason why I had separated myself from Conrad. Seeing my dragon had really hit home to me that something not right was going on, because the pain was more than I could stand.

But the pain was kept at bay by something else. I felt warm, in a disbelieving sort of way. I hadn't expect Seto to stand out against pornography, to justify my pain rather than ignore it, like I was doing so hard to do. I had been under the impression that most guys, if not all, were into pornography in one way or another, and I figured most people thought it was normal. I didn't understand my own pain, the pain of being cheated on and afraid of being compared to other photo-shopped women, of being used, of being an object. Yet secretly, deep inside, as I collected the code of my dragons, I had harbored a dream of something that would protect me from the love I could never find. My dragons wouldn't allow the harlot on the screen to harm me. My dragons didn't care if most boys did porn, they would tear them from the internet before I got a chance to realize what it was.

But Conrad had killed one in order to get to his virtual prostitute, and then lied to me.

I found myself afraid to believe that Seto was telling me the truth about what he thought. But, then, this was Seto. He was a freak among freaks.

I didn't want to ask if he meant it, though I wanted to know so bad it hurt. But for once, I kept quiet.

During lunch he researched ways to make Red-eyes invisible with me while sending me material on firewalls and anti-malware programs.

"It's sort of my forte," he said. "So you'll find they're all my own notes."

I took a peek at one of his said 'notes.' "Lord, Seto, you sound like a freaking professor." I read a few more sentences. Not a word made sense. "What in the...can't you just teach me all this?"

"That would take forever."

"I'll die before I finish this!"

"Stop whining, you asked."

"Some friend you are..."

"You should feel honored."

"Why? Because asexual Seto is sharing his deep cloning secrets?"

He smiled, well, his thin lipped smile. "Yes."

I stuck my tongue at him and went back to reading a few more of his notes. Half way through the first page, I gave up.

"If this is so important, why did Blue-eyes make it into your computer?"

"Because I don't have a firewall or any protective program."

I blinked. "What?"

He smirked, a full blown one that had to be borderline evil—like, Gothum city bad guy evil. "Luring in viruses is one way I learn my hacking skills. Viruses are, after all, the weapons of other hackers."

I didn't know how I was looking at him, but it hurt my face. I dropped it and shrugged. "Well, don't go crying to me when you loose your history report."

"I never loose my work. Most viruses are child's play."

"I don't know, I've never seen a kid messing around with a cold or the flu...that was suppose to be funny. You're suppose to laugh."

"You're a weirdo."

"As you frequently tell me. Anyways, just tell me what all this stuff says. Pretend I'm five."

He put his hand through his hair and sighed. He closed his own laptop, hopped his chair over, and started opening up certain programs for me. Right before my eyes, he somehow got my computer to cough up the code of a virus I had had for the past month. A harmless one that, at most, clogged up my CPU, but one nonetheless. From there he dissected it like the monkey in Anatomy, explaining each bit and there action. Of course, once he explained one action, he had to explain how it affected my system, so we only just finished when the bell rang with the last of our sandwiches in our mouths.

"I got a talk with my mother I'd like to put off this evening. Would you like to go for coffee again?" he said.

"Sure, it'll give you more time to explain this to me." I didn't even bother asking about his mom. He had already hinted at something that had to do with his disinterest in applying for an internship at one of his family's hospitals.

"If you just read my notes-"

"Seto, those aren't notes, they're a foreign language. And since you're loaded: hot cider, loads of whip cream. Caffeine gives me the jitters."

"A please would be nice."

"Please. Would you like me to lick your shoes with that?"

"I'd rather not have saliva on my shoes, thank you."

"Your welcome."

We made arrangements to meet outside this time, I texted my dad, and I headed off to gym. Yugi and I pedaled on the bikes and talked about Atem, surprisingly. She, apparently, had also been invited to Tristan's party by Tristan himself, since he had been told by Atem that she was my friend (oh ha ha, Atem, I see what you're doing). Whatever nervousness I had been feeling before eased away. Nothing bad would happen as long as I had someone like Yugi to watch my back, right? She did much squealing, demanded we get together before the party to get all prettied up, and even suggested we go shopping for outfits—which was way out of my league. The only time I went shopping for an outfit for any specific occasion was Halloween, and that was at the thrift store.

"Don't take this the wrong way," she said, "but, just from your background, you might not have anything appropriate for an occasion like this."

"Yugi, it's just a birthday party."

"Then, fine, just do it for me. I love dressing people up, and you have such a curvy figure!"

There's the perks of that white trash ass. "Okay, okay. I'll see if my dad would be willing to lend me some money." I hated asking for money.

We set the date for Friday afternoon before the party. I didn't want to give her more time than she needed to wander around a store. Also, make up and hair shouldn't take that long, even for freaking prom, right?

Tristan and Atem seemed to be making similar plans, though. Tristan refused to tell either of us the kind of stuff he had managed to set up for the party, but he had a hissing sort of laugh that he pushed through his teeth whenever we brought it up.

"It's gonna be sick, guys," he would say. "It's gonna be sick!"

And then the computer teacher would come over and slap the top of our monitors, which would be enough to scare us back to work.

At the end of the day bell, I said good-bye and happily skipped to the exit as I wrapped my coat about me. The snow outside was deep and white, and I looked forward to another charming evening sipping cider and gazing outside at it. Seto was some sort of murmur in the back of my scenic, Christmas card image.

The air hit me in the face like a pinch on the nose, a kiss on the chin. I kicked a bit at the snow and slipped out my phone to ask where Seto was. He hadn't told me where he had parked, and there was parking on both sides of campus, including the biggest parking lot near the gates. The usual fancy cars were out to pick up their equally fancy masters.

I didn't see him till I sent my text and looked up.

He stood still and dark on the inside of the gates, leaning against them in a black coat that blended in with the students. His dark hair contrasted more than ever against his pale face. I knew he saw me. He was looking right at me.

The moment I met his eye he pushed off from the barred walls and trudged his way over to me through the snow and to the sidewalk.

I didn't move when Atem stepped up to me.

"I heard you got a-Joey, what's wrong?"

I didn't say anything. I had to act normal. Atem couldn't see this. I only prayed that Conrad would contain himself in public. He was almost to us, his eyes never leaving me once, as though drawn by a power you usually only read about in fantasy novels. But that's how Conrad was: dramatic, unreal.

"Joey?"

Atem followed my gaze and watched as Conrad tapped his way in front of us. He was as tall as Atem, only an inch or two taller than me, if he tried. His smile was earnest, big, and stung something in me like salt to a still open wound.

"Hey, Joey. It's good to see you again. Is this your friend?"

I still stood frozen on the spot, somehow pushing a wobbly smile onto my face.

Atem smiled pleasantly. "Yeah, I am, Atem Brown. How do you know Joey?"

"Oh, we go back a while. I met her where she use to live, but I really need to have a word with her in private, do you mind?"

"No! Of course not." But he looked hesitant when I met his gaze. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"Yeah, tomorrow."

He nodded, glanced at Conrad once more, then slipped past me and back to the loop around where his ride waited.

I watched him go to avoid meeting Conrad's eye.

"Joey," he said once more, stepping up to me. I took a step back and he paused, expression hurt, but growing frustrated.

"I've come all this way," he said lowly. "The least you can do is tell me why."

"You killed her." I said. "You lied to me. I thought I told you."

"You left me over a dragon program?"

"No, you know that's not it."

"I'm afraid I don't, because where I'm standing I can only see a hypocrite." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Please, Joey, I just want you back. I need you."

"No you don't." I said. I should punch him. My fists were shaking though, what if I missed the first time?

"Yes, I do." he left no room for argument in that tone, and it scared me. He took another step towards me and I found myself shaking harder and full of dread. Please don't kiss me in front of all these people. Please don't claim me in front of all of them, I don't want to be attached to you. I don't want to be attached to anyone, I don't want them to hold me to you.

"Oy!"

The sound was so unexpected I flinched. Conrad just looked up, expression hard and strange.

"Oh, it's your boyfriend."

"No." I said, but I looked back.

Stomping towards us, his trench coat fluttering behind him, and with his face set in stone harder than I'd ever seen before, was Seto. He carried his bookbag/briefcase in his hand, though he looked as though he had forgotten it.

"Step back from the lady, please." he said, even as he neared us.

I really, really didn't want to be here. I could handle Conrad on my own, but if Seto tried to get him to leave, Conrad's reaction would not only be unpredictable, but probably volatile. He was a passionate guy, after all, and Seto was butting into something that was none of his business.

But, to my dismay, everyone within hearing range of Seto's shout was already looking towards us, watching.

"We're just talking." said Conrad.

"I don't care, you're trespassing on private grounds. I know for a fact that you aren't a student, and if you don't leave now I will call the police."

"School is out," the other boy said coolly, "I highly doubt they could arrest me just for saying hi after school."

Seto stepped up to my side. I had never realized just how lanky and tall this guy was until he used it to his advantage to tower over the slight Conrad. He looked not only years older, then, but formidable and, dare I say, frightening. Even Conrad seemed to hesitate, though the obvious intimidation seemed to only upset him more.

"Fine. Joey, come on." he said.

"I have plans." I said faintly.

The look Conrad gave me was incredulous and mask-like. "Why can't you just come for a minute? Give me the time of day? Don't I mean anything to you—are you really going to just throw me away after I've come all this-"

But then Seto stepped in between us and forced both of us back.

"Conrad Jacobs, I am Seto Kaiba of Kaiba Corporation. If you dare to speak to her again I will find you and sue you for every penny you could even hope to earn for the rest of your life."

This was getting out of hand—seriously. Like...way over dramatic. "Seto, you're acting like an idiot, it's no big deal, I can take care of myself! Please, you're causing a scene!"

But what happened next I can't quite say.

Conrad gave a roar, remarkably low and loud for a guy his size. Somewhere nearby a girl screamed and Seto dodged to the side, knocking me to the ground in the process. Frightened by the noise I covered my eyes, even though what I should have been doing is kneeing them both in the nuts, but not before I saw Seto grab onto Conrad by the back of his coat and fling him into the snow. Nor before I saw the glint of a long blade in Conrad's hand. It could have been a kitchen knife.

His voice from a memory floated into my mind: _since I'm so skinny and have never been able to gain much muscle, I've always been more comfortable with a knife. I think that, no matter what situation we might end up in, I could always defend with a knife well enough._

He had almost said it like a fantasy of his. To be able to cut down someone bigger than himself.

The noise of the scuffle was punctured by war-like battle cries from Conrad and shouts from other students. I could hear people gathering around, the campus guards yelling to 'break it up.'

"He attacked me with a knife, sir." I heard Seto say. "He's not a student, he's trespassing, and he's been stalking my friend for some time." Then, in a lower tone, "You better be ready to call a lawyer, Jacobs."

I heard more angry yells and curled in on myself. What had I done? All this ridiculous embarrassment just because I wouldn't talk to him?.

The guards were calling the police. Students were asking what was happening, excited whispers were being shared.

I wouldn't look up. I wouldn't watch.

"Joey!"

And then I felt Atem's hand on my shoulder. I wanted to shrink in through the snow.

"Are you okay? I heard he had a knife."

"I'm fine." I muttered.

"Why are you all curled up like this? You can stand up, now, you're going to get cold."

And not wanting to continue pointless arguing, I stood. Seto was just getting off of Conrad where he had a knee on his back to hand off to a guard. I caught a glimpse of Conrad's furious expression, teeth bared, face red with cold, before I closed my eyes again. All I needed him to do now was to-

"Joey!" roared Conrad.

I could feel everyone's eyes on me now. I could feel my face burning up. No, I didn't want them to see, I didn't want them to know.

"Mr. Kaiba, I'm going to need you to fill out a brief report, we can hand it off to the police. Your friend here too."

"Of course."

Atem, stayed by me, though, hand still on my shoulder. It was weird being touched by him, he had never dared to before, even for a high five. Now, however, it was like he didn't want to let go.

"Joey..." but he didn't know what to say, because a rebellious tear somehow managed to ease out from under my eyelids.

"Please let me go," I said.

"Of course, ma'am, as soon as you fill out this report."

And in some attempt to disconnect myself from the scene, I said, "I'm only seventeen, you know, you're suppose to call me miss."

A guard or two chuckled and I opened my eyes to meet them, quickly bringing my gloved hands up to catch the tears before they escaped. I was not going to fall apart, damn it! This was all so stupid! And I looked to the side in time to see Conrad stuffed into a campus police car in handcuffs and shut in. I brought my attention back just to meet Seto's gaze, which was probing, as though trying to read how I felt. Atem slid his hand off my shoulder and made some space.

"Joey, are you going to be all right?"

"I'll be fine." I said. "You should head home, my dad tells me your parents are punctual."

"Yeah, but, if you need me..."

I was touched. Maybe Atem liked me more than I gave him credit for. "I'll text you. Promise."

He nodded, gave me an encouraging smile, and left to where his driver waited for him.

The campus patrol men had Seto and I fill out the reports, to which I did as quickly as humanly possible so I wouldn't have the time to think about what I was putting on the paper about ex-boyfriends and blah blah blah. Then, they took the papers, excused us, and left Seto and I standing in the middle of the school grounds. The other students had long ago filed out once it became apparent that the fun part was over.

I wanted to turn and leave with my nose in the air. Seto had made a scene when that had been the last thing in the world I wanted. I wanted to kick him. I also wanted to throw my arms around his neck, because he had saved me from another scene I didn't want to see play out. Stuck in the crossfire, I could only stand there, hands at my side, my face and hands getting cold.

"So, coffee." said Seto, as though for all the world he hadn't just manhandled my ex.

I couldn't comprehend another hour with him—yet I felt grateful to him. "Yeah. And hacking lessons."

"Yes yes."

He started forward. I moved to follow him, but stopped, knee deep in snow. I could see the spot in the banks where they had thrown up the snow in the tussle.

Seto noticed and turned around, waiting. I clenched my hands at my sides. I had to speak. I had to say something.

"I'm sorry!"

He frowned his glorious frown. "What for?"

"I'm sorry about Conrad, I'm sorry he came here, I'm sorry you felt like you had to defend me from him or like I needed you to do all that, I'm sorry I humiliated you and caused you so much trouble, and—and-"

"Joey, shut up."

I snapped my jaw close. I could feel tears prickling my eyes again and angrily pressed my forearm against them for a second, then dropped it. I had cried too much. I was not going to be a freaking boob anymore. I was not going to do this in front of Seto! I wanted him to see me! I wanted him to see how strong I was, not some girly cry baby!

But he just looked slightly angry, which made me flinch back. I really must have done something wrong.

"Don't give me that look," he snapped, "You've done absolutely nothing wrong and it's infuriating when you think you did. The only one who should be sorry is that idiotic asshole who thought he could pull a knife on me!"

"Don't talk about him like that-"

"Don't you dare defend him!"

And then something snapped in me. I was something like stress, something like frustration.

I couldn't keep holding myself together like this.

Maybe I was furious, and it had just been so long since I've felt it I didn't know.

"_Why?!_" I yelled. "What are you going to say? That he's abusive? That he's manipulative? That he's a sociopath? I already know that! He knows that! Well don't you dare, because I'm not a victim! I won't be! I'm not going to sob and say woe is me, I don't need your help, I can _take care of myself_!"

Seto flinched, his expression faltering. "Sociopath?"

"And you know nothing about me Seto, so stop pretending that you do because I don't need saving! I can survive anything—I'm stronger than that!"

"Joey-"

"Don't you dare act to pity me, don't you dare feel sorry, because I'm fine, I'm absolutely fine, and now you've just made a big deal over absolutely nothing and this is all people are going to see me as, as some sobby emo girl, so-get away from me! What the hell are you—"

But my sentence was cut off by him yanking my face into his chest and swallowing me up in his arms. My forehead only reached the top of his shoulder, even though he was half lifting me off the ground with his hug. My senses spun with his pine musk. Even through his thick coat I could feel his warmth.

"Joey," he had stuffed his face into the crook of my neck. "It's okay. It's okay to be hurt."

"I don't want to be—I won't be! Let go!"

"But you are. You're so hurt you can't understand it, you can't hold yourself together."

"Stop it, he just came here to talk, why should I-"

"Shut up." he said softly. "Just give up. It's already happened, I already saw, and I'm not going to believe you when you say you're okay."

I was trembling. I couldn't make a sound because a dry sob, too large from my throat, had choked me off. I didn't like this, I didn't want this, I didn't want to be seen.

But he was right.

Seto then led me to his car with a hand on my back, chatting awkwardly about firewalls and my developing spy dragon. I listened to him, all to happy to push what had just happened behind us and pretend that it didn't happen. He took me to the coffee shop once more, filled with the sounds of jazz over the radio, and we went over line upon line of code. The tricky thing about making Red-eyes the perfect spy dragon was that every computer had a different code, a different system, a different firewall, like people with different blood types. It was simply too much out of my league to make Red-eyes able to cross over to anyone's computer, so I settled with the easiest that I knew of: Windows XP. I decided to get to work on it tomorrow and settled in to my second cup of hot cider and a game of war with Seto.

And then, quietly, with the taste of whip cream and cinnamon on my tongue, I told him. I made sure to say it in the middle of a conversation, completely random, so that I could meld back into the conversation when I was done so he wouldn't have time to respond.

"I came here because my step father kicked me out." He didn't react to my randomness. Only looking faintly surprised. I keep my attention on the cards we kept smacking down on another. "It wasn't because I did anything wrong. I'm not the best at school, but I passed my classes, stayed out of drugs, didn't mess with boys—well, there was Conrad, but it was all online. I did everything I was told and I didn't talk back, because, well...if you said anything at all when he got his attention on you in one of his moods, it just made it worse. I had something to do with my mom. My sister wasn't there half the time—off with her dad, my mom's second husband, and I guess my step dad didn't like me watching him treat my mom like crap. But since he gambled we didn't have any money so food, or at least, for a third mouth, so...he kicked me out."

We landed the same card and we mechanically went into a war. Seto beat me and took my cards with a sip of his coffee. Whatever it was he was drinking, I could smell it; bitter, rich, and sweet as one of his deserts.

"I didn't want to go." I told him. "I couldn't leave my mom and sister there with him, and my mom was a wreck and when my sister was there she just hid in my room all the time, I had to keep them safe, what if he..."

"What if he what?" asked Seto.

I lost my courage and fell back into the conversation I had interrupted, something about why manga was just as good as any 'wordy' book, and yes, I did read them, thank you very much. He let me, and I appreciated it.

Sometime later in his Yaris, driving up the road to my house in the dark, I broke halfway through a conversation again, almost part way through a sentence, even.

"That's part of the reason I tried to have space from Conrad. My aunt told me my step dad was abusive, that the way we lived wasn't normal, that it shouldn't hurt, and I'm always afraid I'll turn out like my mom. It was just painful to be emotionally separated from him, but I wanted to make sure, and I did. My step dad is an addict, and so is Conrad. He wasn't good for me. I didn't want to be a part of the chain. I didn't want my children to live like my sister."

"What about living like you?" he asked.

"I'm fine. I can take care of myself."

He said nothing and allowed me to continue like I had back in the coffee shop.

Of course my dad—my real one, mind you- had heard through one of his friends or another that some ex-boyfriend of mine had pulled out a knife at us. Seto calmly corrected him, that Conrad had only pulled the knife at him, but I was too busy standing half terrified in the living room. I had never seen my dad like this. He was angry, yes, but it was a cool deadly sort of anger. He didn't thunder like my mother's husband and his eyes didn't pop, but I didn't know what to expect.

"I'm sorry, dad?"

"What for?"

But then Seto had explained how Conrad had been stalking me, trying to get to me because I wouldn't talk to him, wouldn't have anything to do with him, and my dad seemed to not understand why I was sorry. He was only, as ever, logically, icily, cooly angry. It was the only time ever I saw a resemblance between Seto and him.

He asked for every information I could give him on Conrad, pretty much commanded me to get a new email account, and then he went off into his office to give my mother a call, leaving me and Seto alone in the living room.

I was shaking.

"He's not mad at you." Seto said. "Why are you acting like that? You're being ridiculous, it's like you thought he would hit you or something."

"I didn't think he was going to hit me." I snapped.

"Well then, stop acting like that. You should be mad too, that sociopathic moron screwed with your life."

"But I let him. I shouldn't have, I'm not dumb. And that wasn't his intention."

Seto let out a loud, exasperated sigh and ran his hand through his hair. The fire painted orange on his face, and for a minute I wondered what it would be like if he was sitting in front of a fireplace, much like this, in a different time and a different place. A strange sentiment came over me, and I cocked my head to the side, watching him.

"Seto, why do you care? This still has nothing to do with you."

"The fact that you're even asking that should prove to you that you're not 'just fine.' You said it yourself, we're...friends." he said the word awkwardly, as though it didn't feel right on his tongue.

This made me grin. "Don't hurt yourself."

"Don't be silly."

"You should probably be heading home, now. I know you _love_ sleeping under the same roof as someone as sexy as me, but it simply isn't proper." I flicked my hands towards him, saying 'shoo shoo.'

He then surprised me by giving me the second of his true smiles, the one that transformed his face. It wrecked all sorts of havoc inside of me, and it took all I had to keep from smiling like a lovesick idiot and running up the stairs then and there.

_Dear God, Seto is beautiful._ I thought. _You did a good job making this one._


	9. Rich Bastards Make All Right Friends

**Totally want to eat a mango right now, with a heaping side of guac and chips. Mmmm, guac.**

**Please review and Pika y'all.**

Chapter 9

Going to school the next day was hell. Every freaking nosy busy body wanted to know all the juicy details, and people I had never spoken to before suddenly knew my name. I was infamous. Everyone wanted to know about the crazy knife wielding ex of Josephine Wheeler. Even in Anatomy, when we weren't allowed to talk and the presentations went down, kid after kid kept sneaking notes to me in the dark as though they were close friends of mine of some sort.

And then Seto had the audacity to look amused.

"Money makes you tight, even if it's in an unfriendly, wary way." he said to my exclamations that in my last school most kids had the decency to keep their distance.

Then another kid came at me and I jumped behind Seto for protection without thinking. I could hear the kids footsteps slow in confusion and could hear some of them chuckle.

"Hey, Kaiba, why's she hiding behind you?"

"I don't know. She's been jumpy since yesterday." I wanted to kick him, so I kicked his shoe.

"Understandable! That guy was scary!" said some girl. "I heard he's a convict from some bad ass juvy and that he came for her because she ratted him out, is it true?"

"I don't know," Seto was having way too much fun with this. "What do you say, Joey?"

"Where do you people come up with these stories?" I said.

"So it's true?"

I flinched away from Seto to glare at them. "NO."

Though I thought my tone was final enough, and prayed that my glare was scary enough, they just got excited.

"Then what happened?"

"He just followed me from Arizona because I wouldn't talk to him, okay? Yes he's a lunatic, now leave me alone!"

I wanted them to look afraid, affronted, even cautious, but they just wilted in disappointment. Fuming, I planted my hands on Seto's back and pushed him on so we could move past them already. I could feel his laughter beneath my hands, even though I couldn't hear it.

"Stop laughing."

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are, now stop."

"Or what?" he said, looking down at me over his shoulder. I let go of his jacket like it was on fire.

"I'll kick you again!"

"Oh no, my poor shoe."

I scowled. "Come on! I thought it was a good thing that I refrain myself from physically injuring people."

"Then don't even bother to threaten, at least until you get your dragons gearing to go." he started walking ahead of me. Kids were watching us as they flowed past like a stream of traffic.

"I could always sneak Blue-eyes into your computer with the intent to destroy everything with a 'V' in it." I said. "I do know your IP address."

"Oh, like that isn't easy to change. Just calm down. They'll probably all forget about it in a few weeks, tops. For now they love you for bringing excitement to their boring lives."

"Yeah, well I just wish they'd go find their own excitement."

Atem wouldn't let me hole away in the library at lunch time, which annoyed me. I thought I was finally making a breakthrough in finishing Red-eyes's programing. He, however, seemed too anxious and concerned after yesterday, and he insisted on just giving him a bit of time.

"I left you with that...that douchebag when I shouldn't have. I'm sorry!" It was like the sixth time he had said that.

"Yes, I know, and you're fine—but I really have a project I need to finish!"

"Is it one of your dragons?"

"Yes, and I almost have a breakthrou-"

"-or is it about Seto?"

This totally threw me for a loop and I stared at him. It was the most confrontational Atem had ever gotten even close to. The guy was so quiet and good-natured, I didn't have it in him.

"Yes," I said slowly, "it's about the dragon."

Despite his good-nurtured tendencies, Atem wasn't backing down. He looked serious, and it made him look cuter than ever. We were in the hall across from the doors to the cafeteria, so we weren't alone, and I was praying that no one noticed, because I wasn't sure what to make of the look on his face.

"I'm sorry, but..." he glanced to the side. "I'm doing this for Yugi, she's worried about you because you do spend an awful lot of time with him alone in that library, and I heard from Yugi that he slept at your house a few nights ago."

"Atem!" I couldn't believe him. "He got snowed in! He was just dropping me off from getting apple cider!"

"I'm sorry, but that sounds a lot like a date. Look, I'm not trying to be annoying, I just...I don't want—I don't want everyone to be whispering behind your back-"

"What, like you?" I said softly.

His eyes widened. "No! Not like that, I didn't mean to, and don't be mad at Yugi either, she just mentioned it in passing." His face scrunched up into something alien, something I didn't like. "Please be careful, Joey, don't go sleeping around, don't be the white trash you keep calling yourself."

I was hurt now. I just gawked at him. Then, because I didn't want there to be any doubt, I stepped in close, right up to his face, enough to see his cheeks burst into color.

"I'm a virgin," I said lowly, "and I'm a pretty serious Catholic. Shows how much you know me."

I didn't expect him to respond, but he did.

"I would know more about you if you would just open up."

I wanted to ask what was wrong, I wanted to tear out what exactly why he was saying that, because I couldn't get it either, but since I also wanted to slap him, I decided it best to leave.

Seto instantly picked up on my bad mood when I dropped my bag on the floor and put my face to the table.

"More adoring fans?"

"No," I said. "Atem's acting weird."

He chuckled. It never ceased to amaze me how he could do that with the smallest smile in the world. "About time you noticed."

"What?"

"Do I have to make it easy for you?"

I scowled at him. "I'm not an idiot."

"But you are naïve. Fine, he's besotted with you."

This shocked me, but not as much as it should. I mean, he was awfully cute, but, "Damn it, Seto, why do you think everyone's in love with me? He's in love with Yugi! Did you're all knowing gaze somehow miss that?"

"Oh? So that was why..." he paused for a minute to consider it, then shrugged if of. Probably below his godly esteem to care. "Seems kinda strange you'd be mad, though. I thought all girls wanted hoards of drooling boys."

"Don't know what you're talking about. I want to be a nun."

His cheeks were twitching. Against my better judgement, it got me all excited. If I just pushed a little farther, I might get my third real smile yet. At the same time I knew if I did, my heart might just break.

"For reals?" he said.

"Are you surprised? Besides, that's not what we should be talking about right now—why are you freaking stalking everyone? Poor Atem."

"Please, the boy is hardly inconspicuous. You can see it from the other side of the hall. I knew he was infatuated, and I hardly considered that Yugi friend of yours to be an option." He sipped at his desert today—a fancy jug of chocolate milk.

"You're a freaking jerkweed, you know that? I hope you didn't tell anyone else your 'theory' because Yugi likes him, she likes him a lot."

"And so does half of the female school population. Too bad you're on the career path as a nun, though," the cheek twitched again, "I don't think they would allow you to make dragons in the convent, too close to Satan."

I sighed and put my face to the table. "I hope you're wrong about Atem. He is cute, but I'm sure he's had his eye on Yugi for a while. She's far more worth his time anyways."

"And the only comfort I get from this is that you aren't attracted to ugly beanpoles. That's good to know."

Okay, so Conrad wasn't your traditional handsome, but I didn't trust handsome guys. I figured someone who I could depend on would more likely be in a dorky body.

"Will you stop mocking me already? It's mean."

"It's either laugh of break something, love."

"What did you just call me?"

"My mother is British, Joey. It's a common female endearment not always given to those of romantic relationships." His cheek wasn't twitching though and he was taking another swig of his hot chocolate. I groaned and reached in for my lunch: a delicious cup of stew left over from the night before. This banter was wearing me out. I didn't even feel like working on Red-eyes anymore.

"Whatever." I said.

"That's unlike you."

"I'm tired, Seto, is that against the law? Besides," I rolled my head to the side to press my cheek against the table, "I promised Tristan to go to his party, and knowing he likes me is going to make things awkward."

"Then don't go, I didn't like the idea from the start."

"I keep my word."

"It's just a birthday, and he only wants you to come so he can hit on you mercilessly."

"Seto, that's not fair, he's my friend."

"Opposite sexes being best friends is rare, and Tristan is not one of those types. Atem, maybe."

"Then I'll go for Atem. It's in his house, after all, and Yugi needs a wing-woman."

"Hmm," he said, snapping his laptop shut. I watched him out of the corner of my eye for a moment as he unwrapped his sandwich (he often ate his deserts before the main meal), and unfolded a manga from his lap. I smirked.

"Ah, look whose reading the corny Japanese picture books."

"Yours may be corny. I'm reading _Death Note_, which I find intriguing and on par with any psychological novel."

I sighed. "Always the Sherlock." And since Seto wasn't going to work for once, I didn't see why I had to, and I took out my own manga.

"Some would say our friendship is unhealthy," I said, "all we do is program and read books."

"We also talk, we play games,"

"At a coffee shop."

"Very well," he put down his manga and looked hard at me. "Would you like to go dancing this weekend? Saturday, or it can be an excuse for me to kidnap you Friday evening from your admirers."

"Dancing?" I felt my face fall. "You don't mean like one of those freaky drug hole night clubs, do you?"

That broke it. He tipped his head back in a belly shaking laugh, the smile breaking across his face, outlining the beauty.

I closed my eyes. No, this was way too soon after Conrad. It would just hurt me. It would just hurt him.

"I'm sorry," he tried to quiet his mirth. "I just, ah ha, what do you think is going to happen at Tristan's party? Really?"

I blinked in confusion. "Um...presents? Balloons, cake, ice cream, maybe some party games like spin the bottle or pin the tail on the donkey?"

He was laughing again, and loudly. I 'shh'ed him and threw a ball of plastic from my cookie at his face, which bounced off his shoulder instead. He put a hand over his mouth and ducked himself into the table, struggling to breathe. Finally, he took a deep breath.

"Next thing you'll tell me is that you don't know where babies come from."

"Seto!"

"No, I wouldn't be taking you to a drug-hole night club. They make dance clubs for teens, you know."

"Wouldn't those be, I dunno, all..."

"They're every bit like the real thing minus the alcohol and hallucinogenics, and maybe better music. I don't know, it's been a long time since I've gone."

I still felt uncertain. I just couldn't see the serious Seto dancing, and the thought made me smile. Maybe we should go, just so I could see that. Lanky, stone-faced Seto, duking it out like Elvis Presley.

"Okay, yeah, we got to try that, but I pay this time. My dad and I've agreed on an allowance and I want to stretch my money muscles."

"Agreed? What did you do?"

"Uh, he give me chores around the house, I do, I get money?"

"How quaint."

"Rich ass."

Though I liked that he didn't invite me to go see a movie. Neither of us much cared for TV. Maybe its because we wore out our eyes on screens as it was with our computers.

We made arrangements, talked a bit more (in which I learned that Seto was an older brother, though his younger brother, Mokuba, was still in elementary), then gathered up our things when the bell rang.

"I wonder why my dad's never remarried." I said. "He was young enough when he divorced my mom."

"How old was he?"

"Eighteen."

Seto gave me his funny look. "How old was he when you were born?"

"Sixteen. So was my mom. Thought you knew."

He shook his head. "And so they got married?"

"Yep, and I've been told horror stories about sex before marriage since then. My aunts and mom have been telling me my whole life that teenage boys are just horny cretins that want to get in your pants." I gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look. "I'm so lucky that your asexual."

He scowled—so, he went back to normal. "There's no such thing as an asexual human being."

"Oh no!" I slapped my hands to my cheeks to mock horror. "I can't be around you anymore! But oh wait! You're gay, so I guess that's okay."

"I'm not gay."

"You're not?"

"I thought it was obvious. Besides, I'm Catholic, I don't believe in homosexual relationships. Go to mass every Sunday and everything."

He sounded irritated, in a dangerous way, but I perked up. That was the last thing I had been expecting. But I couldn't stop smirking.

"Took you long enough to admit it. So, can I go to mass with you?"

He frowned. "What?"

"I'm Catholic too, just been having a hard time figuring out how to get my dad to take me, since he usually works on Sunday. Also, I think he's Baptist and, well, I think that might have been one of the reasons he didn't get along with my mom."

He said he would text me about it later and parted ways to head to his class. I practically skipped all the way to gym, happier than I really had a reason to be. Maybe it was because Seto was beautiful, and since he wasn't gay, I still had a chance—though I didn't want a chance. I couldn't ever be allowed one.

I didn't talk to Yugi about Atem in gym, because I wasn't yet quite sure what to say to her. But since she was Yugi, well, it was easy enough to forgive her, and it didn't bother me none. Computer Technologies turned out to be more awkward than I had anticipated. I couldn't tell whether Atem was mad at me or what. Then, to my luck, the teacher had us paired off for a project, and since Atem sat to my right, he got paired with me.

I scooted over to his computer and plugged in the touch screen we had been given. Atem numbly opened up the program that would allow me to interact with him on the same computer. I kept my head bowed.

"Look, Atem," I said quietly, beneath the teacher's voice as she gave instructions. "I'm sorry for walking off on you like that, I wasn't really mad at you, just sort of hurt that...look, nothing is going on between me and Seto, okay? I'm sort of swearing off of boys for the rest of eternity, as I bet you can guess why."

He sighed, pulling up a notepad screen and keeping his eyes on the teacher. "No, I should be sorry, that was out of line of me to dive into your business like that. I...think it might really bother me a lot, the whole white trash thing."

"Why's that? You know I'm not."

He nodded, clicking on a file in the student drive and dragging it up as the teacher demonstrated on the screen. "But...please don't get this wrong, I don't talk about it at all, but it's Yugi who hears it all the time. She isn't a gossip, I promise," he gave me a pleading look, which was unnecessary, because I already knew, "she's just easy for others to ignore and people talk about things with her around that they really shouldn't. She's worried about what other people think of you. I...I don't like to see her worry." he said softly. "I wanted to make sure you didn't do anything stupid—Seto's not exactly the best person to hang around when you're trying to get a good reputation. Most people hate him, and the rumors they spread about him are worse than what they spread about you-"

"You can stop now, dude. Thanks and all for your effort, but I can take care of myself. Besides, we've made up and all that mush so you can take back your soap box." Better stop him before he said something really stupid.

He gave me a weak smile that crinkled his baby blue eyes. "Okay."

And it was good.

That night I talked to my dad over dinner about, well, silly dad stuff, like how he was working on a new project he knew I'd love to see, but that I couldn't see yet. He told me it was purple, which made me laugh. Sure, I liked purple, but I was beginning to wonder if it was actually my dad's favorite color.

I then was able to curl up in front of the fire and work on my dragons and homework in peace, without being afraid that Conrad would pop up randomly.

And yet, he did.

I was finishing a code on Red-eyes's XP firewall override system when a bing announced I had an email. It was from my old account. I had made a new one as my dad told me, but now Conrad had been taken to jail to be held for aggravated assault until his court date, I had been too lazy to figure out how to delete the thing.

Wondering if it was just some manga alert from a site I frequented, I clicked on the icon and enlarged the email.

It was probably the shortest email Conrad had ever sent me.

**I wish I could hate you. You have crucified me and I will never recover. Just letting you know that my parents bailed me out, and my dad wants to talk to you. He doesn't like what you did, and our attorney is very good.**

**I guess I was wrong to believe in you.**

**But I can't get rid of these feelings.**

**If only I had never met you. If only you would just disappear from this world.**

I dropped the phone. I felt afraid, honestly afraid. For the first time in my life I realized I might know a person who was capable of doing the awful. I had never wanted to believe it could be Conrad, because even though he had issues, he wasn't cruel, and he promised to not hurt me. But after he had pulled a knife on Seto for just being told to get off private property...

I picked my phone back up, my hands shaking. I wanted to talk to someone. I didn't want to feel like this anymore, like I was alone, that I was still in the world designed for two, for me and Conrad, but now that he was gone I was just alone, alone, alone—no one could fill the gape!

I breathed. I needed to calm down. This was ridiculous. Conrad wasn't about to come after me to rape me or anything stupid like that, come on. Besides, if he tried, I'd just knock out his teeth or stab him to death with one of my heels.

But I pulled up a new text and sent it to Seto, simply telling him that Conrad had been bailed out and had sent me an email. Then I tried to throw myself back into Red-eyes's code.

When my phone rang I nearly jumped out of my skin. I checked the caller ID and answered.

"You didn't have to call me." I said. "It's no big deal."

"Can I see the email?" said Seto.

"Why?"

"Because I can't trust anything you say when you talk about him. You're always protecting him."

I didn't know what to say to that. But, for once, I didn't feel like Seto was invading my space. I was scared, but, he was taking me seriously. Maybe...maybe he could make the fear go away, give me reason to make all these harsh feelings nothing. If not that, then maybe he could tell me why there were there. But most of all, maybe he could smash down the walls of two that had been built around me.

So I sent it to him and waited. It would only take him thirty seconds at most to read the entire short message.

I jumped again when Seto cursed loudly.

"You didn't have to do that in my ear," I hissed, "man, potty mouth much?"

"You swear all the time, Joey. Why did you put up with this guy?"

"I thought I already told you."

"Yes, but...Joey, he's insane! If I hadn't been attacked by him the other day I would've just thought this message some cry whiny angst, but he's getting ideas." he paused. "Joey?"

"What." I didn't realize I had started to whisper.

"Are you okay?"

"I don't need you to protect me. No one wants to be around someone who they think they need to babysit all the time, and I've already caused you enough trouble."

He was quiet for a moment. Then, "Joey, what are you thinking? Be honest. Why did you send me that text?"

"Seto..."

"Come on. You're so good at blurting your thoughts, this shouldn't be hard."

The blanket I was clenching squished between my fingers. I looked around to make sure no one was around, because that's all I needed, for my dad or Denise to start worry-wart'n over me. Then, quietly, half hoping he wouldn't here me, I said. "I'm scared. I'm scared of him. And I don't want you to hate me."

The voice that came from the other end almost didn't sound like Seto anymore, for it had softened considerably. If I hadn't already heard it once before, I would've thought something seriously wrong was going on over there.

"I could never hate you."

That seemed to open up the floodgates and I bit my lip. "Seto, it's stupid for me to be afraid of him."

"No, it's not. He's a scary guy."

"Is he?"

"Joey, he followed you from Arizona without your invitation and then attacked me with a knife." The soft tone was gone and the stoic business Seto was back.

"You did sort of threaten him."

"And there you go again. Honestly."

I hesitated. "I'm sorry, I swear I'm not screwed up."

"Yes, you are, and one day I'm going to convince you to talk to someone about it, because as you mentioned before, I'm not your therapist."

I felt my neck get hot. I didn't want to talk about this anymore. I didn't know if I could feel anymore ashamed. Seto was too close, too deep. If he left, if he decided to hate me—I didn't want to live through that.

"I need to go, I have stuff to finish."

"All right, are we still up for Friday night?"

Oh yeah, I had yet to talk to my dad about it, though hanging out with Seto—or any people, for that matter—was sounding less and less appealing by the minute. "Yep."

"I'll see you tomorrow then. Sleep well, Joey."

"You too."

I put down my phone with a constricted invisible snake around my waist. Why'd everything have to feel so awful? I didn't need therapy. Therapy was for crazies. Though, at the moment, I just didn't want to get any closer to Seto. He'd soon find out that broken people don't make the best of friends.

I took a long, soaking bubble bath after that. Had a freaking party to go to tomorrow, might as well use it as an excuse to pamper myself. Then I played _Legend of Zelda_ until I passed out. I could see a trend going on here.

The next day, I enjoyed myself and forgot about the stupid email. I finally fessed up about who Conrad was to my friends in between classes so that I could, well, have them as friends. Atem had had a point. It was hard to make friends to a wall. Tea actually really looked at me for once, as though seeing me for the first time, and Tristan made many appropriate punches in the air, accompanied by very appropriate inappropriate words.

"So that ass of an ex stalked you here and then made you feel like crap? Not cool, man. Any guy who gets you should make you feel like a freaking princess."

"I hear that all the time, but it never sounded realistic." I said, quite honestly.

"Well it is," said Atem. "I've seen it. My dad treats my mom like a queen."

"How does she treat him, though? Does she run him over?"

They all gave me a strange look, as though not quite sure where I had come up with that. Tea just nodded though.

"No, they're best friends." said Atem.

Tristan folded his arms sagely. "King and queen, man. What does that make you, Atem? Prince charming? Nah, more like a little prince." He put up his finger suggestivly.

Atem's face flamed and he frowned. "Stop thinking so much into this, and why does something like that sound so pervy coming from you?"

"Oh, your majesty, my little prince."

"That's not even funny, Tristan."

"Then I guess I should take it a step farther." he knelt before Atem, yanked out his floundering hand, and kissed it with his puckered up, slimy lips.

Atem made a noise as though Tristan had barfed on his hand rather than kissed it and pulled it back so fast he hit himself in the face.

Yeah, I'd like to say we were better than that, but we laughed, and we laughed hard.

Afterwards, Tea, who had avoided me, ignored me, and talked down to me ever since I had arrived there gently touched my shoulder and gestured me to the side.

"When you were talking about how he made you feel," she said, looking suddenly shy. "I knew what you meant. I had a bad ex once too. I wasn't too hot on myself then, but I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For not liking you and talking about you behind your back." she said, and her bluntness surprised me. But then, her bluntness was the only thing I knew about her.

But it made me smile. "I never held it against you. You don't have to like me if you don't want to."

"But I want to like you now." she said with a blush. "I'm sorry, I'm being really weird."

"No big." I held out my hand to her. "Friends?"

She returned my smile and took my hand in her soft, perfectly manicured one. "Friends."

I shook it hard. "Goodie goodie—oh, and by the way, Atem's yours to fight over."

Her eyes went all big as though I just told her I was pregnant. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play coy, girl, you're way to obvious. I'm just letting you know that you don't have to ever worry about me being competition. He's cute and all, but not my type. You have someone else to worry about."

"Why are you telling me this?"

And I told her the truth. "Because girl's can get their tits into fits over stuff like that, and I always got the impression you'd be the pits to be up against. I mean, gal, you're so pretty and all, but I bet you could be pretty mean too, like Hollywood worthy."

I don't know if she understood most of that, but she faltered. "No need to...say it like that." She bit her lip. "But I guess I can be pretty mean...huh?"

I just winked and saluted her. "Just keep that in mind. Consider me a lesbian or somethan."

She laughed and I took that moment to run to my next class, all sorts of happy feelings bouncing around in my chest.

Maybe opening up more about my problems was a good thing after all. I mean, I wasn't about to go sob everything to them at lunch, I still wanted to sew my mouth shut. But this was a start. Maybe it could be all the therapy I needed.

But what made me most happy, though, was that, for once, I didn't feel so alone. I could see the holes through the walls built around the world of two I had previously inhabited, and what I saw, I liked. Atem, Tristan, and Tea might be rich bastards in their own right, and Tristan might always pull out the stupid white trash jokes, but I liked them all right, and they liked me all right, and that's all that really mattered.

Seto looked happy in his straight-lip way when he saw me bouncing into the library.

"Why are you so happy?" he asked.

"Because I have friends who are pretty all right for being rich bastards, and yes, that includes you, Mr. Rich Bastard numeral uno."

"Usually saying 'bastard' is frowned upon in civilized society."

"You're just saying that because you don't know how to deal with happiness." I plopped down in my usual chair. "If it wasn't for me, you'd be sitting here all alone grumbling, scowling, and being a general Scrooge. This is your cue to say something mushy, like, yes Joey, you are right, you changed my life."

"Not likely. It's more the other way around," he closed his laptop even though I was just leaning out to get mine. "I got something else in mind, actually. Would you like to get lunch?"

I frowned. "We can leave campus?"

He rolled his eyes. "We can technically do whatever we want, no matter what the policy says."

"So we can't."

"Yes, we can, and I'm trying to offer you lunch, I thought you liked food."

"It sorta keeps me alive, but if you keep buying me stuff I'm going to end up your slave."

"I highly doubt three sixteen ounces of hot cider would buy your soul."

"And gas!"

He looked crossed between his usual annoyed self and amused. "Look, why don't you just enjoy taking advantage of having a 'rich bastard' for a friend and let me buy you lunch? I need to stretch my legs anyways and I kinda like having you around. You're ridiculous."

I didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted, but that's how must of things Seto said to me seemed to go, sometimes, in a blunt, funny sort of way. For a moment I got worried, thinking of Conrad, but then I remembered his double edge compliments and shook myself. No. His hurt. Like the time he had offered to buy me liposuction when we got married—why did I date that guy?

It was the first time I had thought it, and it made me smile.

I hopped down from the chair and skipped after him on his way to the library stairs.

"So I guess it's like you're buying the services my company gives then, eh?" I said.

"You honestly should think before you talk."

"I know!" I chirped. Then I thought it over, a bit confused. "What did I say that was so bad?"


	10. Parties, Love, and Swing Dancing

**Okay, folks, I really stupidly got involved with three projects at the same time, not including this one, so if this is a bit late, along with the next update, I am so sorry. X.X I'm not entirely sure what madness has gotten into me.**

**Let me know what you think! **

Chapter 10

Getting prettied up with Yugi was funner than I anticipated. I couldn't remember the last time I had been in a bathroom with another girl doing hair and make up. Most of the time I was too unsure of my own ability to live up to my gender to tackle anything girly with much confidence, especially after being at the mercy of Conrad's harlot goddess for so long. But she curled my hair into bouncing waves all down my back, and I couldn't stop telling her she needed to go into business as a professional hairdresser or make up artist. She was into theater, after all. She just smiled, blushed, and moved on to her own hair.

I hardly recognized the dorky version of myself in my reflection. When was the last time I had curled my hair? Did I even know my hair could curl?

My dad poked his head in a bit later.

"Hey, buddy, I got an early Christmas present for you! Do you want it now or at Christmas?"

We had already hit the first week of December so I gave him my best scolding face.

"Dad, I can wait till Christmas. It will be more exciting then."

He considered this, but beamed. "But it's so pretty! I can hardly contain myself, and you could even use it tonight. Everyday, actually!"

I giggled. Yeah. Maybe it was best I forgot the past dad-empty years. It was partly my fault too. I always had his number. Maybe he was just waiting for me to call him. "Dad, I love you."

"I love you too, Joey."

"But I can wait till Christmas. I have a present for you too, after all, and I want to be able to give it to you at the same time."

He almost looked thrown for a loop. "A present for me?"

"You don't have to sound so surprised, you are my dad."

With that weird, almost dreamy grin, he wished me well, reminded me of my midnight curfew and threatened to be in touch with Seto (apparently he had his phone number, big surprise), then slipped away.

"I like your dad." said Yugi as she touched up my make up and her own at the same time.

"I like him too." And I really meant it this time. A part of me even wondered why I hadn't tried this earlier, back in the beginning, when my mother's new husband was proving to not be the nice guy I had thought he was. Back before the closet went dry, before I had to move before the year was out, before Conrad.

My dad may be a space cadet and completely lost when it came to anyone's emotions, but he was kind, sincere, smart, and willing to support me in any path I choose, even to the sky itself. And after that night when he had heard about Conrad for the first time, though he had scared me, I couldn't see how he couldn't love me and act like that.

We loaded up into Yugi's splotchy green dodge Neon for the party. A few hours earlier she had forced me to buy a pair of bellbottom pants, fluffy mini-skirt, and a tight fitting blouse that had an amount of lace that I was unused to. I had barely weaseled out of wearing pink. She also made me by some slick, clunky boots, but at least I didn't feel like I was going to constantly tip over in them.

"Isn't this look a little, I dunno, disco?" I had said.

"No, but the past is always in style." she said. "Except the 80's and 30's. No."

So I trusted my 'fashion guru.' Though, personally, I hadn't seen anything wrong with my clothes except for a few holes and stains, and you hardly recognized those. If anyone was close enough to see them they should probably be slapped.

We chatted and laughed through the snowy night, and cruising past the fields of white made me feel like I was in a dream. I had never imagined this sort of life. I could finally see how broken I had been, but I knew I'd mend up in no time. Then I could really be normal and happy, for reals. I could worry about stupid teenager things, like whether my boobs were big enough or how I was going to get my next video game. I could worry about grades and boys liking me and having hissy fights with my girlfriends. No more worrying about if the day would come that I would have to physically fight tooth and nail to protect my mom from her husband, no more worrying about whether my sister really had been molested, if my mom would ever come out from her room, if we'd have food the next week, if I'd have to run away...

No. I could be normal.

I didn't ask how Yugi knew the way to Atem's house when we suddenly pulled up his driveway. His house was, as expected, rich, but far more extravagant than I had imagined. I thought houses like this only existed in the movies! It had large, heavy wooden doors, a tall porch, and Roman like pillars up and down the front like a white house, inter-spaced with red brick. Huge, beautiful trees hugged around, spotlighted by lights throughout the front yard. Oh, and it was big. Really big. When we stepped in through the front doors, a huge grand staircase met our view that split off into two directions at the top.

Huh. I liked my house better.

My house...

If I hadn't been grinning before, I definitely was now. Because, after almost three months, it had only hit me then that the beautiful Victorian manor was not just my dad's house, but mine too.

Atem invited me in. Music was thrumming loudly somewhere in the house, and the only normal lighting was in the front parlor where he accepted us. He was holding a glass of something gold and bubbly. He greeted us happily, smile wider than I had ever seen it.

Then I looked up and saw the huge crystal chandelier.

"Don't look now," I said, "but the ceiling's made of diamonds."

Atem did his awkward chuckle.

The whole huge living room behind the staircase had been filled with flashing lights. What had to be a real live DJ was in the front, hugging his headphones to his ear and bouncing his head. Kids were dancing everywhere, especially where Tristan was, who was bouncing and hollering like a maniac in the center. The couches had been pushed to the walls and there were kids laughing and watching on their plush cushions. The other end of the room opened up to a huge kitchen, which was covered in snacks and drinks of all sorts, but the thing I seemed to see the most of was the glasses of golden bubblies. Atem handed me one with another one of his a little too happy smiles and I found, it wasn't glass, but a very nice plastic. The moment I took a sip, however, it took everything in my power to swallow it. It was too sweet—foul, even, and burned on the way down.

"What the-"

"It's champagne." he said. "Tristan brought it over, obviously. My parents would never let us have it. "

I exchanged a look with Yugi, who's thin eyebrows had vanished behind her blond bangs.

"Atem, we're underaged."

"It's okay, really. It's hard to get drunk on champagne, I hear."

"Dude, you can get drunk on watered down beer, and Tristan is looking a bit crazier than usual."

And he was, hollering with the song and then, to my endless disgust, pretending to hump a girl who danced next to him, who tipped her head back and laughed. When I turned back to Atem, though, he was squinting, as though he couldn't make out his friend at all.

"Atem?"

"Nah, that's just him." he said, taking another sip. "He's an idiot."

I tried to find a semblance of my previous image of birthday parties, but all I saw was a big pile of wrapped presents next to a giant walk in kitchen pantry and what had to be a birthday cake. Not wanting to barf, I left my plastic flute of champagne next to Yugi's and we stood to the side, looking for something to do. Everyone was on the living room floor or the couches, dancing. I even saw a couple peel away and up the stairs, giggling. Atem caught them too.

"Aw, come on," he sighed and put down his flute. "I better stop them before they do something nasty in my house." He seemed reluctant to leave the place next to Yugi. It was too loud for them to talk comfortably, but I had fun watching as he tried anyways, lowering his voice to be heard. Yugi had never looked more pink.

"I'll go with you." I said, for a lack of anything better to do.

Yugi nodded enthusiastically and trotted after us. She had grown quiet since we had gotten there, probably because her affection for Atem had brainwashed her of her ability to speak. I wouldn't be surprise.

Though I went with him up the stairs, it was mostly so I could stare at my first modern day mansion, leaving the unpleasant job of rating out the horny couples from the rooms. They protested, they whined, and he told them to do their business anywhere else than on his and his parent's sheets, please. He didn't want to roll over in the night and get some STD or something, which offended what had to be a gay couple down the hall. They looked ready to kill him, and he was almost ready to flee then and there.

"Look, he's drunk," I said to the couple, "he's being an idiot, but really, don't you think you could find a more romantic place than here?"

The grumbled in agreement and shuffled off somewhere else downstairs. I saw Atem's first scowl ever.

"I'm not drunk." he said.

"Doesn't matter if you are or not, I just saved your life."

Yugi nodded seriously. Suddenly, there was a clatter downstairs. Atem cursed and ran back downstairs. Yugi and I followed at our own pace.

"It's tough to be a responsible kid." said Yugi.

"I think that's why there's so few."

Downstairs I dropped my present on the pile, watched the clock, and munched on snacks. I had skipped dinner for this, so I made sure to get my fill on the good stuff. The party kids just seemed to get crazier and crazier, and more and more cups of champagne was passed around. As the dancing got dirtier and dirtier, I stopped watching. I couldn't see how that could be attractive. Ten minutes to eight, when Seto would pick me up, a kid rushed over to the nearest trashcan by the back door and hurled.

That decided it. Atem sucked at throwing parties. That, or the cliché teenager's idea of a party sucked butt.

I made my way to the front door, wondering where Yugi had gone. Almost as though answering to my thought, I thought I saw a flutter of her pink skirts at the edge of the crowd, heading towards the bathroom, and Atem leaning against the entryway to the living room, his posture slumped. He looked up as I walked past.

"Where you going?"

"Seto is going to pick me up soon. Nothing against Tristan, but this party kinda stinks. I just saw a kid hurl, maybe you should check on him."

He followed me into the front parlor, the party a heartbeat behind him. I pulled my arms through my long coat and pulled my long sleeves through.

Atem blew it off, waving his hand. "He'll be fine."

That made me stop. It wasn't down right rude, but... "Are you okay?"

But he spoke over me. "I thought you said you weren't with that guy?"

"I'm not. I already told you, I'm off boys."

"Then don't go with him, stay here."

I scowled at him. "Why, so I can watch more kids up chuck and act like animals in heat? No thanks."

He did the wave of his hand again, as though waving my words away. "Prude. They're getting in touch."

Something wasn't right with the way his eyes looked at me, and I was about to tell him so, when suddenly he lost balanced and tipped over. I rushed to catch him, but gawd the guys' heavier than he looks! He ended up pushing me back with the smell of his breath though, rather than his weight. He stank of too sweet and yeast. He slapped a hand to the wall above my head to catch himself, dizzy.

"Okay," my voice sounded high, "you're so drunk." If Yugi were to find us like this...

"Not so." he said.

He so was.

Okay, what do you do with drunk guys? I mean, if Atem was going to be my friend from now on, what would a friend do? I couldn't really well leave him here, what if he kept drinking or did something really stupid? Like slept with a girl or-

I shuddered. Really, did we all have to act like freaking animals in order to have fun?

Atem's head bobbed and landed on my shoulder.

"Sleepy." he mumbled.

I sighed heavily. Why did I feel like I was going to regret this?

"Okay, I'll help you get to bed, but you barf on me and I'll kill you." I wove an arm underneath his armpits. "Come on, dolt."

He almost happily followed my lead, muttering about nonesense, really: how he had always wanted to learn cello, how Tristan got a girlfriend, and how Yugi had the cutest breasts, because he caught a glimpse of her purple and pink pokadot bra strap on accident.

I groaned. Just great, like that wasn't a soap opera episode ready to happen. Yugi had the modesty conscience of a nun sometimes. I couldn't see how he could have ever seen her bra strap.

"Which room's yours?" I wondered what time it was.

He lazily pointed to the one at the end of the hall, to the left, and I lead him to it. I pushed opened the door, checked for creepy horny teenagers, and pulled him in. His room smelled of boy and had posters of...I stopped. Paintings. Beautiful paintings, of angels, demons, mountains, birds, heavens strewn with stars and clouds, and a lake.

But the one that drew my eyes the most was one next to his bed, which was a blue, big, and comfy. I sat him down, pushed him back, then stood to get a better look at it.

It was a girl with familiar big, amethyst eyes and curling blond bangs that hugged her round cheeks and bounced off her collar bone. She wore a long, beautiful green dress and was held aloft in the picture with huge wings of what I could only describe as stardust and feathers.

It was Yugi.

"Did you paint all these?" I asked.

He mumbled a 'mm'hmm.'

I looked more closely at my friend in the painting. The likeness was uncanny. What did this guy do, stare at her all day?

I felt a too hot hand wrap around mine. Atem was looking up at me with those glazed eyes.

"Kiss me." he said. "Please."

He sounded so weak, pleading, as though he were begging for his life rather than a kiss. His face was outlined by the pale light outside of the house, shining in from the lit grounds, as well as the hall light pouring in like the champagne downstairs.

"Kiss me." he whined. "Yugi."

I sighed. Just great. Was it possible for a guy to get plastered enough to mix up a gangly creature like me with a sweet, pixie girl like Yugi?

I leaned down and pushed him on the bed. His eyes never left me, pleading, and—my stomach squirmed—wanting. I couldn't remember anyone looking so full of want. Aw, god, now all I needed was Yugi to walk in and get the wrong idea.

"Sleep, dummy." I said. "I am not the drones you are looking for, trust me."

I took a blanket from the foot of the bed and threw it over him. His expression was broken now, and he looked like he was about to cry.

"Please, just one. Yugi, just one."

"Shut up and go to sleep already. I'll see you on Monday." I straightened and walked out.

To come face to face with Seto, who looked way too amused.

"Enjoy your make out session?" he said.

I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to pull off one of my big boots and throw it at him. "Please, Seto, I was helping him to bed before he did anything stupid. If I was going to make out with someone, I wouldn't do it in a buttoned up winter coat." I lifted my arms for emphasis. "Why do people think drinking themselves stupid is fun anyways? It makes you sick, makes you act like an idiot-"

"Oh, are you telling me that little Joey didn't have a drink?"

I made a face. "I had a taste before I knew what it was. Almost barfed then and there! People like that stuff?"

"I hear it's an acquired taste. I prefer wine myself, though I promise I'll never get to the point you'll have to drag me to be begging you to kiss me."

I blushed for Atem's sake. "Just, gah, let's blow this joint already."

"What about your friend? Has she been drinking? If so, we shouldn't let her drive home alone."

"She already knows I'm leaving her alone, so she swore not to drink. She's never even had a drink in her life."

Seto frowned. "I don't like it."

I mirrored his frown. "You don't think someone will try to rape or anything, do you? Come on, it's just a birthday party."

Seto, for once, didn't look pleased. "Joey, I think I know now how you could get involved with a sociopath."

I gawked at him as he turned to head down the hall and down the stairs.

"And yes, you shouldn't leave her alone for those reasons."

Now I was afraid. I went after him at a jog and passed him on the stairs. I skidded to the back of the house and easily found Yugi right where I left her.

"Yugi, I'm leaving now so it's probably not a good idea if you stay here."

To my relief, she looked completely sober when she looked up at me—not that I had any experience to let me know whether or not someone was drunk. My step father always kept away when he was drunk. Not. Gal, my sarcasm that time sort of failed. Nor I'm rating myself. Fun.

"I was thinking of going home after you left anyways." she said, smiling sweetly. "Where's Atem?"

My heart constricted at this. Maybe I should tell her...but what good would that do? Love confessions weren't the best when you're barfing up a spleen, and I'd hate for he to be taken advantage of when he wasn't even in the state to mean it. "Passed out upstairs, I wouldn't bug him, he might puke on you."

"Oh...guess I'll walk with you."

Seto had his usual professional blank stance when we made it to the front room. He opened one of the front door for us and Yugi and I had our farewells.

I breathed huge lungfuls of Seto leather and pine smell when we slid into his black Yaris. I hadn't realized how much I had missed it. It was oddly...relaxing. Peaceful, even. I almost wanted to steal his jacket to cuddle with. The moment I thought that, though, I mentally smacked myself.

Seto started up the Yaris, eased out around the stacks of other kids cars, and followed after Yugi's Neon into the night.

I ran my hand through my wavy hair. "You were right, by the way. That birthday party was nothing like I thought it would be."

"Did you have fun?"

"Not really." I then thought of Atem and dropped my head against the dash board. "Stupid, idiotic boy."

"Who? Atem? For getting himself drunk or crushing on you?"

"Shut up you heartless drone.."

"Oh, that bad? Were you sad he only asked you to kiss him when he was drunk?"

"He thought I was Yugi, dipweed, and I was actually afraid he would puke on me, thank you very much. Besides, I'm going to be a nun, remember?"

"Pardon me, sister."

He fiddled with the nobs, turning on the familiar smooth bluegrass tunes of _Nickle Creek._ I sighed and let the music roll over me. He could turn it up to just the right volume too. And the smell of his car...

Wow, I really was screwed up.

"Thanks for picking me up."

"Your welcome."

"So, where are we going?"

"You'll see."

"Oh, I see. You're sneaking me away to some rusty warehouse to rape and kill me with no one's notice?"

Seto shot a glare at me. "Joey, that isn't funny, especially considering who's not in jail anymore."

That shut me up good, and I spent the rest of the car drive feeling pretty darn awful. I apologized to him, but, of course, he shrugged if off like every other stupid thing I tend to let roll off my tongue when I was around him. The thing was, I honestly just said those things without thinking. It isn't till after that I realize how awful they sound.

Yeah, Atem was crazy, begging me for a kiss. Must be the charms of the white trash ass.

I expected the club Seto had in mind to be some dark little building that use to be a business building in the fifties or something, with big neon lights blinking on the front. Thus, when he pulled down a charming lane in a snow blanketed park, flanked by weeping willows and oaks, I was still wondering when we were going to get there. When I finally spotted the lines upon lines of Christmas lights lighting up to a beautiful, glass fronted building on the edge of a river, I couldn't help but gasp. Sleek, fine cars were lined up in the front, and through the huge floor to ceiling windows I could see couples in casual business attire swinging about each other, faces alight, feet trotting in and out like they were made to do just that.

"Holy Mary..."

I didn't have to see Seto self-satisfied smirk to know he had it.

"I thought you were going to take us to some teen club joint." I said.

"I changed my mind."

I barely noticed the silver Honda slip by us. Though not sportsy, it was new enough to blend in well enough with the sleek sports cars it pulled up besides.

I looked back in at the twirling couples, watching my breath rise into the cold air like steam. I wondered what kind of dance they were doing, how I would manage to keep up, how I would mange to learn.

And it made me excited.

"Don't worry, I'll teach you." he said.

"Who said I was worried? I'll freaking learn myself!" I turned to him, beaming down to my toes. "I'm going to look like a freaking chicken with it's head cut off at first, but let's do this!"

I caught the beginning of one of his smiles—the real ones—and turned away just in time, hoping up the steps and to the doors.

Warm air brushed over me on opening the glass doors, along with thrumming, lively swing music. I felt transported in time, to the days of poodle skirts, if that's when swing was. Yugi probably could tell me.

A few of the couples looked back and smiled at me. They were of every age, old, middle-age, my dad's age, even college, but no one looked quite as young as us. I didn't mind. I couldn't see any signs of alcohol or puke, and I could feel my heart picking up. For the first time that night, I wanted to dance until my legs collapsed beneath me.

I grabbed on to Seto's hand. It was warm, a bit harder than mine, and swallowed mine whole the moment I touched it.

"Teach me!" I squealed over the music.

At first I stumbled, of course, but I couldn't wait till I could tap and swing about like the others. Unlike the senseless bump and grinding of the birthday party, this place was light, happy, and the dancing actually looked like it took some brain power. I squealed sometimes when Seto twisted me out, which made him laugh and yank me back. We tapped our feet in and out, he dipped me laughing to the floor, and spun me about. My heart raced and I could feel myself sweating, but it wasn't my effort that made my breath run away from me. That beautiful, full smile almost became a permanent fixture on Seto face, a feet I didn't think possible, and backlighted by the Christmas lights and gleaming water outside the windows, I felt as though my spirit would run away from me any moment. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real. Just yesterday I was scrambling for food and squashing roaches in the kitchen, praying that my step father would sleep until I left.

But now I was here, being spun across light wood floors and smiling with a room full of happy people.

Sooner than I expected, I got the hang of it. We sung around, sweating like pigs, laughing our heads off, breathlessly trying to instruct each other on what we wanted. Older couples were stepping out, out of breath, and clapping our hands to the young one's still out on the floor.

"Let's come here again!" I cried.

And Seto just smiled, looking so much unlike the grumpy boy I had met in Anatomy. Beautiful. I never knew a man could look so beautiful and handsome. Seto shouldn't be here dancing with me, he should be in a movie, on the Hollywood scene, making out with some beauty.

Then the fast songs ended, the room applauded to the DJ (an old man in a fedora who sat at a computer and lifted his hat to us). Then a slow song picked up.

"Aw gosh, how do we dance to this?" I asked.

"We don't, I can hardly move my legs." he gasped, but looking enamored to be so.

"Then let's go outside, that should cool us down quick. And beware, I'm going to wipe my sweaty forehead on you."

"That's Joey for you, the epitome of womanly charm."

"Oh yeah."

We waddled outside with another couple who looked like they could be my parent's age. We exchanged mutual enthusiasm for the great music and then half walked, half limped down the steps to the tiny parking lot. Without really meaning to, we both wandered out into the park of willows and sat down beneath the carefully trimmed arms of the one closest to the parking lot. I flopped down and flung my arms out. Freezing off my ass in the snow never felt so good.

"So," said Seto breathlessly. "Better than the birthday party?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

"I guess so."

I sighed, my face hurting from smiling. "Life's good."

And then Seto was leaning over me, that huge smile on his face. I grimaced at him.

"Don't hang over me like that, you'll drip sweat on me, sicko." I put a hand to his head to push him to the side.

And then he kissed me.

His mouth was hot from dancing, and he tasted of a mixture of sweat and something sweet. I could still smell that pine on him, and he lingered as though barely touching my lips at all, though I could still feel his weight.

I didn't quite know when he pulled away, because my mind was reeling. I wanted to lean back up, dig my hands in his now messy, thick brown hair and bring him back to my lips.

But instead, I just stared at him, something hollowing ringing in my ears.

I couldn't do this.

"Seto..."

But he didn't look happy now. I didn't know what he looked like, because I didn't recognized his expression at first. But just as he snapped away and jumped to his feet, it clicked. He was afraid. Seto was afraid.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."

Talk about the most cliché line in every forbidden love story_ ever_.

"What do you-"

But he was already walking away from me. I wanted to yell at him, shout at him to get back here, be a man, and fess up to why the hell he had just done what he did. We were friends, after all, best friends even, maybe. Was all of that nothing?

Yet, I too wanted to run. I was too afraid. I still didn't know what love was suppose to be like outside of my parents and Conrad. Sure I had caught glimpses, sure I had been told about it, sure I had even read about it. But...how would I be able to tell the difference? And as messed up as I was, wouldn't getting involved with any guy, let alone Seto, just asking for trouble? Rebound did exist, after all.

So I stood there in the cold and watched Seto step back into the club. I wrapped my arms around myself and looked down at the snow I had mashed down.

"What, is it 'let's all crush on the weird girl' day or something?" I muttered to the grass. "I mean, if I had known I was that attractive, I would've chased after Tom Cruise or something."

Though, frankly, I couldn't quite remember what Tom Cruise looked like. I only knew that he was the general sexist man alive for a lot of the women in my family.

But seriously, if I had known...this was just all so stupid and confusing! Was it because I had decided to be a nun? Satan out to stop me from my righteous life of celibacy or something?

I heard soft footsteps crunching on the snow. Wondering if Seto had come back out, I looked up. Someone was walking towards me from the parking lot, but they weren't nearly tall enough to be Seto. Not even close.

The strings of Christmas lights shone on his face. My breath caught. Inside me, my muscles tensed for a fight. I shouldn't be here, said a voice in my head. _The moment I hear his words, I'll be lost._ But, for some reason, I just stood there, feet frozen into the grass.

Walking towards me, face set hard and cold underneath heavy eyebrows, was Conrad Jacobs.


	11. So Not Like Star Trek

**Totally ended up rewriting this chapter. Not sure if I should of. Just warning you, there's going to be some risky, freaking terrifying stuff here. If you're under the age of thirteen or squirmish, I'd be careful. Be as that may, it's not erotica. I will never write erotica or anyone having sex. Isn't that reassuring? **

**Merry Christmas!**

Chapter 11

Oh, _come on_. No one's life was this screwed up. Since when did I ever warrant a stalking boyfriend? Honestly, I wasn't ugly, but I wasn't some drop dead gorgeous babe either, especially not soaking through my shirt with sweat as I was now either.

He kept walking. Soon there were only a few feet between us. My brain was still doing that 'run you idiot' thing that I had often read about happening to terrified characters in books. They never really gave it any justice.

"Joey, don't be afraid, I'm not mad." he said, though his face said otherwise.

Sure, and I'm a porpoise.

"I'm mad at that guy who got me in jail, not you. We can still work this out. I have a car, come with me, we'll go back home together. We won't have to be apart anymore."

I suddenly could feel the walls of the world of two, again. I could remember it, almost taste it. It tasted like Conrad. It felt like his hands on me, when I wanted them and when I really, really didn't want them.

My eyes trailed down, not wanting to meet his dark eyes, and they fell on the knife. Everything stopped cold. He had a knife. Oh God, he has a knife.

Weirdly enough, all I could wonder was where the hell he had gotten it.

"We can get married." he was saying. "We won't need to hold back from each other anymore. We can be together, forever."

With the mounting terror and horror, the glint of the blade in his hand, and the memory of our world pressing in around me like chains once more, my brain did the only thing it could do when at a loss.

It blew up what little filter I had.

"Why the hell do you have a knife?" I said, not at all as calmly as I pictured it. "Have you lost your ever loving mind? Obviously, because I know you know that no sane individual deals with being broken up with like this."

He paused far too close to me. "Broken..."

"You heard me! I said I wanted you to leave me alone, to stop calling yourself my boyfriend, I thought that was clear enough, but apparently you're too _dumb ass stupid and crazy_ to get that! Wake up and smell the crap you've pooped all over yourself, because I'm tired of wallowing in it with you!"

I trembled. He stood frozen, his eyes twitching from one of my eyes to another. I saw pain wrack over his face in a way I thought only actors on dystopic tragedies could pull off.

"No," he whispered, "you're the only one, the only one who can save me."

"Oh, grow up!" I yelled. "No I'm not, so go away already!"

Then, he raised the knife, he stepped towards me, he started letting out his weird Conan the Barbarian yell-

And I punched him.

Mind you, I've never punched anyone in my life—for reals, that is. It's always been playful sort of nudges with my fists. But I punched him, and I punched him hard, right across his face. I was so surprised by my own strength that I didn't feel the pain in my hand until Conrad had stumbled away, hand to his face. He seemed as surprised as I was.

I guess the filter to my mouth wasn't the only thing my brain had removed.

"How could-" but, frightened by the glint of the knife, I aimed a kick at his crouch. I had never done that before either.

And missed.

His face—bared teeth, wide eyes, the way that grimace sent lines all the way up to his ears, like Joker from Batman.

I took a breath to scream, and suddenly he was in front of me. I hadn't punched him that far after all. Then he pushed cloth to my face—and for a quick, disgusted second I was wondering why the hell the sleeve to his hoodie smelt so rank.

And then I felt my vision blurr. Some sucking noise in my ear filled up head with blackness.

I had been laid down on a bed. The sheets were blue. They smelled of him. The sink water was running and I saw a popcorn ceiling reflected in the mirror.

Black again.

Next I was looking up at the popcorn ceiling itself. The room was shaded, in an early morning sort of way. I could hear the hum of the heater somewhere pumping warm air into the room. For a twisted space of time, I slowly sat up and observed the cheap wallpaper with a aching head. I groaned and ran a hand down my face. I didn't have to think it to know how I had gotten here.

And it made me feel like shit. All that talk about how I could take care of myself, all that fighting to show I was strong, and I got taken down by the old chloroform trick. For all I knew, he'd raped me while I slept, though my girl parts weren't aching like I had read they would if that were the case. That didn't help the sensation that I had been violated somehow, even if just emotionally.

I took in my surroundings a bit better. I was in a bedroom with one of those attached bathrooms in it. The carpet looked like something had died on it before whoever lived here tried and failed to take the stains out. The bed was just a queen mattress on the floor with faded blue sheets and a blanket thrown over it. Other than what looked like a pile of clothes in the corner, there wasn't any furniture. A single window, covered by those cheap plastic blinds, was to my left.

I got up, walked to the door, and twisted it. Even before I felt the resistence, I knew I wasn't getting out any time soon. The doorknob looked like it belonged on the front door, and the front side was in my direction. I was locked in.

Then I jumped towards the window. I didn't care how flipping high this apartment was, I'd tie up the sheets in a rope or something and climb out like-

I looked out on the seven stories. Two, three, heck maybe even four stories, give or take a broken leg, but seven...

Speaking of which, where the hell was I? The street looked to be the kind of slummy place you see in the movies, with grafetti and trash everywhere. I even saw a few kids that could have been stoned out of their minds huddled in an allyway across the way.

Jeeze, Conrad, real charming place you found here. I'm so seduced. We'll raise kids here, get all lovey dovey, and then watch as, one by one, they get shot up with drugs and die of STDs. Yeah.

The terror, though, didn't really hit me until I heard the doorknob start rattling. Yeah, Conrad wasn't a big guy, but that didn't mean he was tiny, and if he still had that knife...

The door opened. I twisted around, pressing the back of my knees against the sill of the window. I fought to keep my face blank, clear.

Sure enough, the first thing I spotted of Conrad was the long strip of silver in his hand. Then he had the gall to smile at me. A swollen, red splotch took up half of his face where I had punched him, and was promising to make a most spectacular bruise.

"Morning, Joey. For a minute I was worried, I didn't want to hurt you."

He turned around and closed the door behind him.

"Look, I didn't tie you up or anything, and I only have this so you'll hear me out."

I wanted to say all sorts of things to that, but it wasn't like I've been kidnapped many times. Lot's less dramatic than it looks in the movies. Mostly just terrifying. I could even feel my legs pressing together, anticipating rape.

But Conrad's smile melted to something soft. He reached out a hand. "It's okay, Joey. Just listen, I'm not going to rape you or anything like that, I love you. I can't believe you'd think that of me."

"You chloroformed me." I said flatly.

"Sorry. Got a little desperate."

"Why'd you even _have_ that stuff?"

"Oh come on, Joey, I thought you knew me. You know how weak I am. I had it on hand in case I got mugged while I was in downtown and they knocked the knife out of my hand."

"And, of course, you of all people thought that all out."

His shoulders rose and his smile wobbled. "Look, Joey, I only got this because I'm afraid of you. You did punch me really hard, after all, I didn't think you could do something like that."

"Of course you did! Anyone would if you pulled out a freaking knife on them!"

"What?" he blinked at me, looking honestly confused. "What are you talking about Joey?"

"Don't play stupid with me. You walked up to me and whipped out that thing on me."

"I think that's the choloraform messing with your memories. I haven't pulled this out since I last met your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend."

"I saw you kissing, Joey."

"He'd kissed me—and stop changing the subject! Knife, Conrad, knife!"

"I didn't have a knife."

I stared at him, searching for some hint of a lie. I remembered it. I remembered that knife clearly.

Conrad, though, just looked hurt and dissapointed, and switched the knife from one hand to another.

"Look, all I did was come up to you to talk, that's all, and then you nearly knocked out my teeth. I admit, I panicked, and took out the chloroform, I didn't even think it would work. It just, I don't know, was on instinct from those days when my brother would throw me across the room for fun."

I gritted my teeth and didn't say anything. He looked so convincing. He looked so honest. Then why did I remember the way the Christmas lights in the trees had glinted off the silver in his hand? I remembered Seto, remembered him stomping back into the building of glass and wood. Why was Conrad trying to lie to me.

"Look," he said, "I'll put the knife down if you promise to hear me out and not punch me. Swear it?"

He knew I always kept my word, or, at least, he pretended to and then doubted it behind my back. Heck, even I doubted my word, though I did everything in my power to uphold it. I wanted to be honest. I wanted to be good.

I didn't want to hurt.

Trembling, I gulped. If I got him far enough from the knife while he talked, maybe I could brush past him, find a payphone or something.

"Okay," he stabbed the knife into the trim around the door, where it hung there, point a half an inch deep. "First off, would you like some food? I made some Alfredo and I brought my laptop so we could watch something."

My knees weakened with the anti-climax of it all. "What?"

"Food." he said, with that same soft smile. "And some anime or something. I found some good one's while you were away."

"You kidnapped me for a date?" I said.

"Yeah, pretty crazy huh? If you and that guy hadn't freaked out on me I probably wouldn't've freaked out so bad, I'm sorry. Knee-jerk reaction."

"I don't know if that's something you should be saying with a straight face."

"Probably." he gestured to the other room. "Well?"

Though my stomach had been too twisted up with nerves to be hungry yet, I knew I probably should eat, and the shame I felt for the actions he implied I had induced him to do made me figuratively tuck my tails between my legs. If it was just to hang out...

As though reading my thoughts, he said, "It's all I've ever wanted, Joey. I just want to be with you. You're the light in my dark world. Without you, I can't see straight."

I knew that was ridiculous, but in our world of two, the ridiculous was possible. That's what made it wonderful.

The living room and kitchen were a single room and just as shabby as the bedroom. He had his laptop set up on the floor against another pile of fluffy blankets, and from here I could smell the pasta. I eyed the front door, wondering if I should make a run for it. Then, looking down at the laptop, smelling the alfredo, watching the young man I had longed late into nights just to be with and feeling ashamed about all the drama and hype I had caused in others over him, I curled up on the floor in the blankets. I wanted to hide here forever. I never wanted to face Seto or my father again. Look, Conrad was harmless after all. Just eccentric.

He handed me a plastic plate with the Alfredo and woke his laptop back up.

"I know I've made things awkward," he said, "going crazy like that, so, let's just watch an episode or so first. We don't have to talk right away. And, you know, we can stay here as long as you want too. We don't have to live apart anymore."

I didn't say anything. What was there to say? Three months had just gone down the drain. It was like I had never moved in with my father, and his Victorian mansion was just a tempting, wicked dream.

He started up an old show we use to watch together. It was brightly colored, funny, and light. He laughed a few times, and like Seto, his true smile changed and improved his face. He had angular features. Tall cheekbones, brown eyes, short cut black hair with a tall widow's peek.

I curled the noodles around my fork and plopped the noodles in my mouth. It tasted good.

I swallowed.

"Look, I should probably call Seto and my Dad to let them know everythings okay or there's going to be trouble."

"Oh, I already did that."

I almost dropped my next forkful of noodles. "What?"

"Yeah, I used your phone. Told them you were fine." his expression fell oddly blank. "I can't believe you told them those things about me. You know I would never do those things to you. They seem to think I'm some homicidal, crazy sociopath."

Had the things I said really sounded that bad. "In there defense, you did sort of follow me from freaking Arizona without telling me."

"I tried to tell you, but you blocked me out." he swallowed the mouthful he had. "My parents let me come up here to see you for a bit, since I finished my semester early. If you had just listened to me you wouldn't have freaked out so bad when you saw me. I had to go to your school, it was the only way to get your attention."

I was feeling even more stupid now. In my humiliation, I turned my back to the front door. It was starting to make sense. Of course Conrad wasn't some freaking stalker, even if he did admit to being a sociopath. Sociopaths weren't people who couldn't feel guilt or feelings, but simply people who only felt emotions on very deep level, which was why their anger was so prominent and deep. I had read up on it.

Anyone who had seen Conrad's face when he was angry would never say he had no emotions.

But that was a secret I was suppose to keep, and I had told Seto, and now they had thought wrong of him and thrown him in jail, and it was all my fault.

And again, showing his strange intuition into my thoughts, he said, "My parents want me home. They're, um, not too happy that the girl the let me visit got me thrown in jail."

"I'm sorry." I said quietly. It sounded so inadequate.

"Why'd you punch me, anyways?" he asked.

"I already told you, you freaked me out."

"Joey..."

He had a hand out, had his fingers on my face. I avoided his gaze and reached up to itch my eyes. The choloraform was taking it's sweet time wearing off.

"I love you. It's okay, now, we're here. Everything's going to be okay."

I nodded and took a few more bites of Alfredo. The homey, comforting sounds of the anime helped me to forget the unease squirming in my stomach. I rubbed at my eyes again, hard. Conrad had even put blankets here, he knew how much I loved fluffy blankets. When I was younger I had obsessed over making nests out of my bedclothes.

"You okay, Joey?"

"Yeah, just...just a little sleepy." And depressed. I didn't deserve to be here. I had treated him awfully. I didn't deserve his kindness.

He must have seen the look on his face, for he hushed me and put a hand on my face. "Shh, it's okay. I love you. It's okay if you don't love me the same, just relax. Here, you can lay down on my lap."

He took my empty plate and set it aside next to his some distance away. The images on the screen were blurring. I was going to be okay. Why did I still feel so uneasy? Probably because I knew I couldn't stay here forever, and I knew I'd have to face Seto, my dad, and all my friends about this later with my head down. How could I ever admit to them that I had freaked out for no reason? Why had I done it anyways? Attention hungry, that must have been it. I had been so lonely after all. I probably was looking for an excuse for some attention and pity in my life.

But I didn't like pity. I hated it. I didn't like attention either.

Conrad's lap was warm, though there was something hard beneath my ear. I adjusted, cursing his stupid, boney thighs. But when I lowered my chin, I found his actual thigh, which was much thicker than whatever was making my ear go numb.

I could hear the closing credits of the episode without remembering what I had watched. I felt so warm, so cozy, so sleepy...

It was a relief when he gently lifted my head and moved out from underneath my head. The comforters he had bustled up were a lot softer. I could feel myself sinking. I heard the laptop snap close, the dishes set on the counter, and his steady breathing.

Then I felt his lips against my face and his fingers on my stomach. I twitched awake.

"What are you doing?"

"Shh, it's okay. I'm not going to do anything you won't like."

But then his fingers kept going up. My head felt so heavy. The belt of my pants felt looser, and my legs felt suddenly cold.

"Conrad-" why couldn't I wake up? Was this a dream? Or was I just staying like this because I wanted it?

I felt something wet on my thighs. My heavy eyes fluttered open to see Conrad above me, eyes dark, breath hot across my face. I forced my eyes to stay open and glared hard at him.

"Get the hell off of me."

"No."

I shivered. "No?"

"No. After what you did to me, this is what I need."

A ice spike of fear ran through my veins. I pushed against him, squirmed out of his grip, just to collapse on my lead-filled legs and arms. With my head as heavy as a wrecking ball hanging between my shoulders I could see that he had taken off my pants, leaving me in my t-shirt and panties.

I could feel the ice spiking through all of me now when I saw his legs passed them as well, and something I really, really, REALLY didn't want to see until I was married.

Naked women could pass as beautiful, I admit.

Men, on the other hand, without all their foo foo, were disgusting.

My legs were shaking so bad. The world curved ultra slow beneath me until it swooped up and caught me on my side. I could feel the scratchy, crap carpet in ultra detail beneath my thigh.

"Conrad, please."

"It's okay."

"No..." damn it, it was even hard to talk. What the hell had he done to me? "No, it's not."

"Look at me, Joe. I want to see your face. I want to see your eyes up at me, I want to see how they look."

He flipped me over, and then, oh God, that thing was against my leg.

"Open your eyes."

I heard a crash, and in my addled state it felt like it echoed off into space, like a starship explosion on Star Trek. There was some sort of roar, stomping that raddled up into my brain, but most importantly the too-hot, thumping thing against my thigh had vanished. I could hear a crunch, more yelling, more bangs that thumped through my head, and even then I didn't open my eyes.

When I felt heavy breath being puffed across my face again, I froze up. What had just happened? Conrad was back to finish with me, but what had distracted him?

"Joey? Joey, can you hear me?"

Wait a minute...

I cracked open my eyelids as far as they would go. I imagined propping paperclips between them to keep them open.

Seto hung above me, hair disheveled, face sweaty and flushed. His eyes were wild, frantic, he almost didn't look like Seto.

I cracked what had to be my goopiest smile ever. "Thank God you're a stalker."

And then I was out.

I woke up to pain on my cheek. The freak had slapped me. I wanted to ask what the heck was wrong with him before he stuffed a pill in my mouth.

"Swallow, Joey. I don't know how much he gave you, so just bare with me."

You try swallowing a dry pill with a dry throat. Of course I started choking, so he put something that had to be water to my lips. After almost drowning, he lifted me up and up—and before I even knew he had stopped lifting me, I was out again.

When I came to, I realized it couldn't be took long. I was in Seto's warm car, listening to the muffled grumble of the engine, with my pants back on. For some odd reason, I couldn't stop staring at his hands on the wheel. The knuckles were white.

"Seto?"

"How do you feel? I need details. Did he hurt you?"

"Huh?"

"Conrad, Joey."

"Um," I groaned. God, my head.

Seto's hands on the wheel, however, flinched. I could feel the Yaris slowing down.

"What's wrong?" he asked. His voice sounded higher than usual. I wish I could record this. He'd never live it down.

"Headache."

He let out a breath. "Yeah, that's to be expected."

"What the heck did you give me?"

"Something to help get the drug out of your system faster. You're going to feel a little nauseous-"

And just as he said that, I puked, right then, right there, in his car.

Seto retched himself. "Called that."

I moaned, slapping hands over my face. I couldn't stop shaking and felt clammy as hell. "Gawd, Seto, some hero you are, what you give me that for?"

"It was a precaution, I didn't know if he had given you too much, you could have died."

"Like hell!" I gagged again as my head gave a throb. "Ugh, my head."

"If I had known I'd one day be letting you puke in my car-"

"You freaking deserve that puke! Smell it for the rest of your life, I feel like crap." Though I did feel less like a sand doll, now.

"Good thing we're heading to the hospital then."

This day just kept getting better and better.


	12. Because Puke is Better Than Wee-wees

**I'm so sorry about this late update! I thought my dad would have wi-fi when I went up to visit him for a week, him being a computer scientist and all that smuck, but it turns out he didn't. Not really. But here it is! The next chapter! I'll be sure to get you 13 soon enough. **

**Thanks for all your support, guys! You have no idea how much it helps me. **

Chapter 12

I sat in my ER hospital bed and kept my head turned from where the nurse had a needle in my arm. The moment I looked at the long tube of dark red, I knew I'd pass out. It had happened before. Which just reiterated my humiliation for being there.

But, the man who had just forced me there, sat next to me, his nose in his phone, scrolling through who knows what.

"I punched him." I said.

"Really?"

"I punched him hard." Then I finally remembered my hand, which ached. It hurt a lot. "And I don't think I did it right. My hand hurts."

"We should probably get it checked out. I've heard of people breaking their hands doing that." Seto looked up at the nurse, who nodded and wrote something down, probably a note to get an X-ray.

"What, punching ex boyfriends?"

"I suppose."

I poked it gingerly. "It doesn't feel broken."

He grunted, eyes on his phone.

An awkward silence fell over us. how do you describe 'just saved you from date rape' awkward?

The nurse, whose name tag read 'Shirley,' finished up her tests and left, closing the curtain behind her.

"I've told your dad where you are," Seto said, "if there's no complications I'll be dropping you off at your house."

"I'd rather not, my puke's still in there."

Seto made an unattractive noise like a strangled cat. "Fine! I'll call someone to come and clean it."

"You can do that?"

"Rich bastard, remember?"

"Oh yeah."

Awkward silence again. I was fiddling with the ugly hospital gown they made me wear for a test. At least they let me wear my pants underneath. I had seen too many of those naked butt hospital comics for comfort. The place smelt ultra clean, and like something else. I had already memorized every line of this room when we had been admitted. I still felt like I shouldn't be here.

"Isn't the ER for dying people?"

"No." said Seto. "It's for immediate care. If it was just for dying people, I'm sure the staff here would need to be frequently admitted for PSTD."

"You know, I've never been to an ER before."

"Lucky you."

"I don't know, it seems pretty nice here." The speaker crackled on and a short tinkle of a lullaby played over the speakers. "What's that?"

"A baby was just born." he said, still not looking up from his phone. He wouldn't meet my eye since we got here. Maybe because he had a weak stomach and if he saw my face he'd start gagging, ha ha.

"That's cool," I said.

A few minutes later, the tinkle of lullaby played again. I smiled.

"Twins."

"That, or just two very in tune women."

Silence again. I twiddled my thumbs and thought about laying down and taking a nap. The clock said it was about ten in the morning (apparently I had been out all night and than Conrad had been waiting to pounce on me the moment I woke up), and I was dreading the talk I'd be having with my dad. Heya, dad! Yeah, all that trust you put in me? Yeah, I went and ended up almost getting raped by someone I thought was my best friend. Yep, saw his wee-wee and all.

I shuddered.

"You okay?"

"Weird you should ask." I said, unable to give him a very wry look.

His face blanched and he hunched down even more into his chair. "I'm sorry, that was...extremely stupid of me to ask."

"Yep."

"So, um..."

"Yeah?"

I heard a faint cracking. A split second later I realized it was his phone in his hand. I flinched.

"I'm sorry for leaving you, like that. Because I decided to act like a child-"

"Seto-"

"-that bastard got to you and you had to experience—and he almost—he almost-"

Seto had started shaking. At least he had the decency to put down his phone, though I couldn't make out his expression behind his no-longer clean kept hair.

I slipped out of bed to reach for him, but he dodged my touch and stood up.

"Don't."

I bit my lip. I could taste the remains of the bile in the back of my throat. "Do I really have to tell you it wasn't your fault?"

"It was."

I snorted—loudly. "Yeah, you raised Conrad, got him talking to me for two years, and then made him decide to rip off my pants." A thought suddenly occurred to me and my face flamed with heat. My pants had been back on when I woke up in his car. That meant-aw, dear God, why is this happening to me?

Seto didn't even respond. He just pulled back the curtain and walked out. My bare feet were growing cold on the linoleum floor, and I vaguely noted the lack of specks I felt. This floor had to be meticulously clean.

Sure enough, I got my wrist X-rayed, they gave me something to help rinse out my system of the drug—this time non-nauseating, thank heavens, and then a kind, pudgy nurse gave me all the essentials to scrub out every last taste and germ from my mouth. I ended up with a brace on my wrist and the results of the test clarified that, yes, I had been drugged, and the papers were then put on file and mailed to my father for sue-wage material.

Seto met me at the front of the hospital with two coffee cups, one of which he handed to me. I discovered it to be hot apple cider, this time without the whip cream ("so as to not aggravate your stomach," he said), by the time I slid into his puke free car. It smelt of vanilla, now, and I missed the pine.

"It wasn't your fault." I muttered.

"Shut up, Wheeler."

"Not a nice thing to say to a scarred young lady like myself." Though I said it jokingly, I couldn't be more serious. I felt like I had been in a situation like this before, and I knew the moment the strange numbness I felt slunk away...

As we stopped by a green light, I looked over at Seto. He had yet to take a shower from the night before, that much was apparent, and his was expression passive, nonyielding. I remembered his glowing smiles with sadness.

And then I felt something else. Something like appreciation, something like gratitude, something like warmth. Something I thought I would only feel once, and unlike it had been with Conrad, it didn't hurt me at the same time. It made me happy and comfortable. I was safe here, in Seto's car. Absolutely and utterly safe.

The images from earlier today flashed in my mind. I clutched at my hot apple cider, suddenly feeling nauseous again. But mostly, I just felt cold. Horribly, icily cold.

Brown snow lined the sides of the street and the bottoms of cars. I could see the Pontiacs, the Lincolns, the Mercedes...

I recognized a street. We'd be to my house soon—my house.

I clenched my knees together and shook myself. I couldn't get the feeling of Conrad from my mind. I couldn't get the image of what I had seen between my thighs.

"Seto...could you pull over? Just for a minute."

His face twitched with alarm. "Are you going to be sick again?"

"I don't think so. I just want to talk to you about something."

"Why can't you just tell me now?"

I glared at him. He sighed, signaled, and pulled over into a thicket of trees. The road to my dad's property fit the _Pride and Prejudice_ look too, all green and secluded. In a way, the road was like my dad's extended driveway.

"What?" he asked, just as I took off my seat belt.

I must have panicked to the icky tar in my gut, I must have been desperate for something, for I just grabbed Seto's head, just as I had wanted to before outside of the dance club, with my hands tangled up in his sweaty hair. Then I yanked him awkwardly to me and kissed him hard.

He responded instantly, kissing back just as hotly, mouth still tinted with salt among the sweetness that was him. I'm not entirely sure about the details, they get blurry, you know, because I like to think of myself as a private person, but at some point he undid my seat belt and tried to pull me over the center console, kissing me and running his hands through my jacket, up my back, and around my shoulders.

I wanted that touch, I needed it. I wanted Seto's warm hands to rub away the feel of Conrad's icy cold ones. I had to forget or else, I don't know. Maybe I would disintegrate, maybe I would go home and drown myself in the tub in an effort to forget, because why had it happened? Why had I let it happened? I should have punched him, I should have ran for it the moment he let me out of my room. It was really all my fault that this all happened to me, I had trusted him, he had been my friend...

And, just as I had hoped, it got harder to think as I was kissing him, for I had never realized how much of a bad kisser Conrad was until then. Seto wasn't wet or slobbery. He was warm, soft, like kissing flower petals with a heartbeat and blood flow.

But the whole awesomeness of it all was ruined by the parking brake jabbing me in the ribs.

I pushed him away, though he held onto me, his blue eyes intense. Golly, who knew a guy was capable of looking like that, like he only saw you, only could think of you...man, that sounded nice. That wasn't possible, though, it just couldn't be.

"Aren't you at all worried?" I said, talking to myself at the same time. "I could just be using you, I mean, look at me, Seto, look at who I was involved with, I don't even know how screwed up I am."

"I don't care." he said.

I snorted. "Well aren't you romantic."

He just tried to pull me over the parking brake again.

"How would you be using me?" he asked, and the husk in his voice startled me. Seto could sound like that? Aw god, if someone heard that—wasn't he listening to himself?

And instantly the memories were back. I wanted Seto's hands on me, not Conrad's. I wanted to be wanted, I wanted to know I wasn't as filthy as I felt.

I pulled back. What the freaking hell was I doing? I couldn't do this to him. Sure I liked him, I liked him a lot, but I was a second hand, broken item. I had just been oozed on that morning. I had just freaking puked in his car!

Horrified, I went to the door handle. Seto's arm caught me, his voice pitched in alarm.

"What did I do?" he asked.

"I can't do this to you,"

"Do what? If you're talking about what just happened-"

"I almost got raped, Seto! I can't be kissing you." I cried. "I got myself into a situation, I let him—I let him touch me like that, I let him get _near_ me like that when I knew what he was, and I wasn't thinking, I can't do that to you Seto, don't you see?"

"Don't I see what?"

"I'm white trash!" I practically kicked open the door. My heart was racing, I felt like puking and crying at the same time. "That's all I'll ever be!"

"Josephine!"

I walked quickly, getting ready to sprint, squinting in the harsh sunlight reflecting off of the snow. I could see my father's house in the distance. He'd be waiting for me. There I could curl up in my room, play some Zelda, forget that the world existed.

What the hell had I been thinking, kissing Seto like that? I couldn't trust myself. Look where liking someone had just taken me. Look at how I had ended up loving.

"I love you!"

I stopped. The road was empty. It was technically Dad's superfluous driveway, after all.

Sooner than I expected, Seto's hands were on my shoulders. I flinched without thinking, but he didn't let go, but smothered me in his arms, burying his head into my shoulder in a very undignified, un-Seto like matter.

"Don't let me ever, ever hear you say that again," he growled. "It was never your fault, never will be. He lied to you, manipulated you, used you, he was a horny, sex-obsessed sociopath who knew he could have his way with you because of your kind heart. And you are not white trash. Don't ever think that, don't ever let me hear...and if what you just did was using me, because you were scared, because you need comfort, I don't care. It's okay, I love you."

He'd said that three times now. I felt weak in the knees. Who does that anymore? Weren't people of today far more cautious? Throwing his heart before me like that made me tremble, almost as though he had literally threw the organ in my hand and I was realizing I was no heart surgeon, not to mention my squeamishness to gore and guts. What did I do? What did I say? Seto was beautiful, Seto was my best friend, but I had had a best friend. I could trust Seto, but I thought I could trust Conrad too.

We stood like that for a few minutes, me having no clue how to react and unwilling to throw him off of me, and Seto thinking who knows what.

Which got me thinking. "Are you okay?"

He grunted, but didn't let go. I frowned, taking in his mess of hair and taking a sniff. Yeah, no shower.

"Wait, have you been awake all night?"

He said nothing.

"Aw, come on, Seto,"

"Don't give me that tone, I rescued you."

"Yeah, and stuffed puke-drugs down my throat."

"Is that all you can think about?"

"It's what I'd rather think about." And, because I was Joey and had no filter, "Would you rather I think about how you saw me half naked and drugged out of my mind on the floor with Conrad and his bare little soldier above me?"

Somehow saying it out loud made it both hilarious and even more real. My reaction ended up being some sort of dry, too high laugh. I sounded like I was going mad.

"Yeah, puke is way more satisfying."

Seto just squeezed me tighter. "I'm sorry."

"Dude, you're the last person to have to say that."

"No. He got to you because I left."

"Not this again."

"Just, be quiet." His hands knotted up into my sleeves. "I...I had been terrified that he'd..."

Had he really been that worried about me? Had this beautiful man just stayed up all night to find me and make sure I was all right? Bought me an apple cider because he knew I loved it? Was hugging me now in the cold, confessing his love, because...why? Because he really did?

Was he for real?

He had chased me to the auditorium, hacked my phone, shared his lunch, played games with me, talked with me, threatened me with a liver, had been blunt to me, watched over me, took me dancing...

I squeezed his wrist. "Oh, Seto,"

"What?"

I smiled and gently kissed his wrist before turning around to face him. When I took a close look at him, I was surprised I had missed how positively dead on his feet he looked. Shadows circled his eyes and the five'o clock shadow didn't help his haggard look, and I thought I could even make out a feverish flush on his cheeks. "We're not doing this right. Not at all. Come on, in the car. When we get home I'm asking dad to let you crash on the sofa."

"I can drive myself home."

"I don't want you to go home."

That seemed to wake him up a bit. "Wait, what?"

I laughed dryly. "Don't think too much into it. Take it as I'm freaked out by the whole whatever just happened and I'd like to have a friend to...be around, you know? I want to play some checkers later too."

He hesitated. Then, a weak little smile broke on his face, one of his straight-line, almost not there ones. "Checkers will help you feel better then?"

"Yeah, especially if you let me win."

"That's unlikely."

"Then go home away from your shaken, defenseless damsel and worry about her then."

He snorted, "More like make sure you don't brake your wrist trying to punch and puking in other people's cars."

"Yeah yeah, get your pasty butt in the car, let's go."


	13. Keep It Simple

**Here you go, guys. Last chapter. :) Hope you enjoyed. Now, I've got a 20,000 word horror I'm suppose to be working on that's due on the 20th and I only got 4,000 words. If you're up for rooting me on in my horrible hell of procrastination, I'll be over in Ghost Hunt fanfiction. **

**Thanks for all your reviews. I loved them. They really made my day, you have no idea.**

**Pika ya'll! And I'll be seeing you later!**

Chapter 13

Yugi flew at me the moment I walked through the main doors. She might have been at least two heads smaller than me, but at that velocity she sent me flying back outside and, luckily, into a bank of snow.

"Oh my _god_, are you okay? Are you okay Joey?"

"Of course I'm okay, why wouldn't I be?"

"I heard you ended up in the ER Saturday night, and then this morning I heard from someone that your dad's filed a case against that ex of yours for kidnapping you—oh my god, Joey! He really kidnapped you? I'm here for you, don't cry!"

"I'm not crying. Not even close."

"What sort of awful things did he do to you? I'm so sorry I wasn't there, I would have ripped off his gonads-"

"Seriously, Yug, I'm completely fine, care to get off of me? You're getting snow down my pants." Or leggings, whatever. Point was, my behind was getting awfully wet.

Not to mention we were attracting a sizable crowd of eyeballs.

Blushing, she wiggled off of me, holding tight to the ends of her skirt and biting her lip. She looked so cute for a minute I almost tackled her right back, but heaving myself out of the snow like a turtle that had been knocked onto it's back distracted me. I turned back to dig out my book bag.

"Yug, I really love you and all, but could you please not shout stuff like that? I'd rather not everyone know..."

Her eyes went even bigger than normal. She turned practically chibi. "So he really did...?"

"Yes, but it's no big deal. Seto got me out before anything bad happened, okay?"

"But why were you in the ER?" she eyed the brace around my wrist pointedly.

"Because I underestimated my strength and punched Conrad in the face."

"You did?"

"I so did."

"Sick."

I laughed. Despite Yugi's adorable, doll-like appearance, her random skater punk way of talking amused me.

"Come on. We're going to be late."

"Then we'll be late, you have to tell me what happened, I want all the details!"

"I will, later."

"No! Text me in class."

I frowned at her. "Are you serious? My English teacher has the eyes of Superman, she'll see my phone in an instant."

Yugi squeezed her knees together, as though needing to go pee. "Oh, come on, have you no compassion on your best friend? I _need_ to know!"

"Okay! Okay! I'll write you a note and give it to you before second period, happy?"

She pouted. "Fine. But it better have all the details."

I barely made it to homeroom in time for the bell. Atem's head snapped over to me when I walked in, then snapped back just as quickly, as though afraid I'd see him looking at me. We didn't have any time to talk before our severe looking teacher stood up and started the lesson.

Halfway through as we were discussing last night's reading, Atem covertly passed a note to me while her back was turn. I unfolded it between the covers of my book.

_I heard from Yugi. You okay?_

I rolled my eyes. From someone who professed to not be a gossip, Yugi did an awful lot of it—all with innocent intentions, of course, but really.

I scribbled back: _Yes. _Then, staring at his squiggly handwriting, I remembered his hand on my wrist in his bedroom and how he had mistaken me for Yugi. I remembered the beautiful painting of her. A more polite, tactful person wouldn't have said anything and would hope Atem didn't remember. A better friend would probably be conscious of embarrassing their friend.

I, however, was Joey, and tactlessness was my defining quality.

So I smirked, scribbled down a note as fast as I could, and threw it back to him at my first chance. Then I watched out of the corner of my eye as his mouth opened slightly and his face filled with the most beautiful shade of maroon I'd ever seen.

He left me alone after that. When class ended, he almost got away, but I managed to grab his sleeve and corner him in the foyer at the front of the building (because freaking rich kids had freaking foyers in their freaking high schools). He made plenty of noises as though trying to protest, but not entirely sure just what to say to do that.

I very ungraciously pushed him into one of those freaking fancy pants sofas.

"Look, just confess to her already, she loves you as it is."

He had been opening his mouth with an expression ready to kill, but at my words he blanched and his face flushed again.

"Wait, she—what?"

I threws my hands down. "Are you really that dense? You've been texting her since I gave you her number, haven't you?"

"Y-yes?"

"And you couldn't tell?"

"She said we were just friends-"

"Oh my gawd, really? How cliché can you get? Just because a girl says the 'f' word doesn't mean she doesn't like you or that she's friendzoning you, unless she's a real brat. Why do you think she talks to you so much?"

He said nothing, red face all agape like a man staring into heaven.

"She—wait, are you sure?"

"I'm her best friend, dipweed. She only talks about how much she loves you all the time, and I know I promised her not to tell you, but you got a freaking painting of her in your-"

"SHH!" He had leaped up and slapped a hand over my mouth. It smelled of graphite. "Be quiet! You know what people are like here!"

I yanked off his hand and curled my fists at my hips.

"Ask her out, kiss her senseless, whatever, just do it today, promise?"

"Joey-"

"What?"

Atem shifted. For once his cuteness looked real to me, not the fake charm I had been trying to push on him in my mind's eye since I met him. In that moment I could see why Yugi had fallen so hard, why Tea had fallen so hard, why so many other girl's had fallen.

"I'm sorry for...at the party...promise you won't tell."

"I thought that was a given."

"And, about Yugi, if she rejects me-"

I kicked his shin. He winced.

"She won't." I said, solid as a sumo. "Do it."

"Okay! Okay!"

And with that we parted ways. Before I could make it to my second period, however, I was accosted by Yugi for the story. I cursed silently, having gotten too caught up with Atem, and dug out a half-finished, half-assed explanation from my textbook. She seemed happy, though, and when I met her in gym she seemed satisfied. I listened closely for hints of Atem's move, for he had a class with her before this, but so far it was a no go. Atem had yet to find his balls. I told her how Conrad's wee-wee (she had laughed at that, though she didn't seem to have the gal to say the word 'penise' either), looked like a wrinkled old hot dog. I told her how Seto saved me, puking in his car, the whole nine yards. She squealed at our confession, though when I expressed I wasn't sure where we stood now, she rolled her eyes.

"Oh, come on, Joey, don't go making this complicated. Love is just love. All the problems, all the details, you can handle that. It's as simple as you make it."

"How do you know this?"

"I just do. Besides, true love is more awesome than this flippity floppity stuff you see on TV nowadays."

"True love?"

"You know, where the prince rescues the princess from the dragon and they just love each other? They get married without hesitation. There's none of this, 'oh, but what about my father,' or, 'oh, what about the way you brush your teeth,' or, 'I don't know if I'm ready for a commitment.' Just love!"

"Okay! Okay! Wow, Yug, soap box much?"

She playfully slapped me, nearly tripping herself in the process on her treadmill. I laughed, but I liked it, what she said. Love was as simple as you made it. You just make the choice, and go for it.

I liked that a lot.

In Anatomy, Seto met me with an almost hidden smile. I noticed he had scooted his chair closer to me and had his laptop open.

"I got a surprise for you." he said.

"Oh?"

He clicked the corner of his boring screen and, in a flash of color, Red-eyes burst out, cooing and bursting with speech bubbles of, "Hi, Joey! Hi, Joey! I'll protect you, Joey!"

I laughed out loud, feeling my chest tighten, but in a good way. It filled me up with warmth, like a good cup of cider.

"How did he get over to your computer?"

"I hacked your computer and programmed Red-eyes to be able to sneak into any computer system."

I blanched. "You mean, you did it for me? All that scripting..."

On seeing the look on my face, his happy expression faltered. "Um, should I be sorry?"

"No, it's just, I wanted to learn to hack..."

"That would've taken you years, Joey. Just take Red-eyes and spy on people to your heart's content. You can even spy on me."

I brightened. "Really?"

"Yeah, and I'll still teach you to hack, if you want."

I felt my face flush at a thought and looked down at my fingers. "But, you said that'd take years. We're juniors now..."

"And? I'm not leaving anytime soon."

I smiled to myself. He may have not realized what he was saying, but I sure did, and even if he may or may not mean it, I still loved him for it.

"I like you." I said.

"Thanks."

"No, really."

On the side Red-eyes blinked and I saw a speech-bubble burst to life, "Lovey-dovey stuff?"

"Yes, Red-eyes," I said. "You're right."

The little dragon bounced all over Seto's screen in a little celebration dance, and when I finally had the courage to look back up at Seto's face, it had reddened, not as gloriously as Atem's, but enough to please me like a cat napping in the sun.

That's right. It's as simple as you make it.

And...I didn't want to be afraid anymore. I wanted to love, without being afraid of hurting, of the virtual whore, or of being left behind.

Half way through Anatomy we managed to try out Red-eyes messaging system, which was funner than shit, let me tell you, and the things we talked about should have made the little dragon feel like it was eavesdropping. Just as Yugi said, and just as I had always been prone to do, I was completely blunt and honest with Seto, and he was just as tactless with me, as he always has been. But the greatest thing I found was that, unlike with Conrad's 'honesty,' Seto's wasn't hurtful.

It didn't hurt.

Soon I'd find out that Conrad's "honesty" wasn't honesty at all, but cruelty, manipulation, and the fruits of his own hurting, unhealthy mind. Though it would take me a while to get over the affects and to believe that I wasn't some self-serving whore (yay, counseling and good boyfriends and friends), I was eventually able to forgive and pity him. It was sad he turned out that way. It was also sad that his life would probably be miserable, especially once my father was through with him—legally, that is.

Funny thing about my dad was that you couldn't really tell he was mad about the whole thing, but the lawyer he hired and the money he slammed down on the poor kid's head spoke of a crushing fury. Conrad wasn't going to recover from that anytime soon, and even at seventeen he was tried as an adult, due to Dad's said killer lawyer.

That helped a lot in finishing my path of forgiveness to him. We both agreed not to tell my mom, and she was happier for it. I think I could understand now why Dad wasn't really a part of my life. For some reason, he felt like he had to be invited. He didn't want to push himself on me, and also because he's still a space-cadet nerd in his own little world. I don't even think he'd notice the sun rising everyday if he didn't have to sleep. Weirdo.

Tea and Tristan remained my friends, though they gossiped just as much as the hypocritical Yugi, but whatev. No hard feelings. If they got on my nerves with the rest of the school, I'd just send a message via Red-eyes to Blue-eyes, who I ended up giving to Seto as a birthday gift, and we'd meet up wherever in the school to do...well, whatever we felt like...okay, fine, we did some serious make out sessions, but most of the time we just did what we usually did: computer crap, nerd talk, and escaping to coffee shops for hot drinks and games. And it frightened me how remarkably easy it was for me to be in a relationship with Seto. I was always expecting the pain, always expecting myself to make a mistake, and it even took a long time for me to get over how paranoid I was of him cheating on me. But Seto, cool as ever, would always drag me away to some place for said make out sessions if I doubted him, or just told me to have Red-eyes watch him if I was so worried. There was a reason he gave me a _hacker_ dragon after all.

"And no," he said one afternoon, "I'm not addicted to pornography."

"How? Isn't every guy?"

"No, and simple. I didn't want to be. Also," he sighed. "Okay, I'm a good hacker, right? Scratch that, I'm a damn good hacker."

"Yeah...?"

"My mother makes me look like a little baby banging on a keyboard."

Well. Wasn't that useful.

"I want to meet her."

"Okay."

"That easy?"

"Yep. It'll be on your head when they make you my fiance' and expect babies by graduation."

"_What?!_"

The librarian had had about enough of us by then, and at my yell she stomped up the stairs to a Seto roaring in laughter and a red-faced me.

But it was simple, him and me. I loved him, he loved me, and when you love someone you deal with their problems, they deal with yours, and you treat each other with care.

And when love is simple, when love is true, it doesn't hurt.

Period.

Oh, and speaking of love, as to Atem and Yugi?

Yeah, I found them macking out in the alcove next to the auditorium the same day I kicked Atem into romantic gear. I don't think they noticed me, but Seto sure asked questions at the goofy look on my face.

Oh yeah. My life was good.

For real this time.


	14. Epilogue

**Realized I left something undone when Joey's dad comes in while Yugi and her are getting ready for Tristan's birthday party. Also, so many of you sounded so sad that I ended it. Thus, here is this! I hope you like it. **

Epilogue

Mom had begged me to come home for Christmas, but I was still smarting at the way my step dad had told me to leave. All I had done was try to help take care of my mom and sister.

_You think you're being someone's friend, but you aren't..._

I still couldn't quite understand. What was it about me that he hated so much? My dad didn't seem to have a problem with me, nor did my mom, nor did any of the teachers at the school. Was I really such a bad kid? I didn't try to be.

But, whatever the reason, I didn't want to go back and face him until I knew it. Thus I found myself being lead out of the house and into the snow by my beaming dad first thing on Christmas morning. I had to blink several times in the blinding sunlight before I saw what was at the bottom of the stairs in the driveway. I instantly forgot about about being outside in the snow in my pajamas.

An old fashion Volkswagon bug, painted a light lavender, sat before us.

"What the..." No way. This couldn't be for me.

"I refurbished it from scratch," he said, not a speck of humility in his voice. "Did the paintjob myself as well—but come down here and look. I had to cut out all the rusted pieces in the body myself and weld in new metal, but you can't even tell, can you?"

No, I couldn't. As far as I was concerned, this car just came out of the factory, despite being, what, how old?

"It's a 1972." he told me. "Not that it matters much. All the parts in it are brand spanking new and adjusted by yours truly. Do you like it?"

"Woa woa, wait, dad, why are you showing me this car? Course I like it, it's beautiful, but if you're trying to show off I already knew you could do this. I've only known you my whole life."

He mirrored my confused look, as though it should be obvious. "Well, it's yours! Merry Christmas! I figured you could use one to get to school when I have work in the mornings. Denise is technically just hired on to be a cook, not a driver."

I gawked at it. Then, a sort of nervous fear came over me and I stepped back. "No way. This can't be for real."

"What? It didn't cost me nearly as much as my Camero. You can get an old working bug for cheap."

"That's not what I mean, dad." I hesitated, scrambling for a way to explain myself without sounding insulting. "You can't just give me a car, I have to earn it. What did I do? Do you need me to pay you back? Because I can."

Cool, logic, and goofy as always, he just smiled at me. "Nope. Don't worry about it, buddy. Just don't crash it or make me regret it, kay? If you have to earn it, consider it as a reward for being such a good kid."

I blinked at him. Then at the bug.

_You're just a stupid kid, you don't know anything!_

"Joey?"

I don't know when it came on me, but I had started to full on sob. My dad, who was as good with emotions as a Vulcan, fidgeted like a kid asked to confront a hard math question, his face flushing.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I kept saying, meaning to explain about how I had been so worried, so scared, that I really was a bad kid and had been waiting for him to say so, but all that came out was, "I love it, Dad. No one will take better care of this car, I swear."

And right then in there, in my pajamas (maybe in hopes it would get me to stop crying), he made me get into the driver's seat and start my first lesson in driving stick shift. After the third time I killed it trying to go into first gear (because apparently bugs had to make a huge, loud, grinding fit about dying), I hadn't a tear on my face and I was busy praying that I wouldn't break the beautiful car my dad had made for me.

By the time winter break was over, I had managed to drive that creature like a pro and had already smacked a _Legend of Zelda_ sticker in the back window. My dad had also insulated the bug, so even though outside it roared like a go-cart, inside the engine mellowed to a purr and I could hear the music playing over the speakers.

Driving into school behind the limos and fancy foreign cars, my forty-something-year-old-purple bug stood out just as much as my dad's Camero, and I saw plenty of offended stares my way at it's little 4-cylinder engine's roar. But the more they hated it, the more I loved it. I imagined my bug in I against the world in some sort of zombie apocalypse and it made me all sorts of giggly.

God, I so loved this car.

I happened to drive into a parking space right as Seto was stepping out of his boring black Yaris. He stared.

I made a grand show of stepping out and whirring the keys around my finger.

"Sexiest thing you've ever seen, isn't it?" I said, petting the round top.

"If you...say so." he said, cheek twitching. "Daddy's little girl through and through. Even had to match."

"Oh, shut up, he didn't let me choose the color. I would've made it yellow."

"Yellow?"

"Yeah. And welded on ears and a tail with a license plate that says, 'Pika'!"

That did it. The twitching broke into a full blown smile and he laughed. As he caught his breath I pulled back the front seat and got my bag from the backseat.

"I love you."

I straightened. "Huh? What did I do?"

"You're just you. Do I have to have a reason?"

I blinked at him, then gave him my best deadpan look. "It's the Pika-bug, isn't it? Because I'm dead serious. Pika-bug would be sick."

The smile on his face could have broken my heart. I expected it to. But instead I found my knees feeling weak and something overwhelming wash over me like a dip into a warm bath.

As I struggled to recover, he stepped across the space between us and pressed his lips against mine in a soft, chaste kiss. He kissed my brow before pulling back, a hand in his pocket.

"I still have to give you my Christmas present."

That sort of broke me out of my trance. "Oh no, you don't. It's January. You're thoughtfulness points are being deducted for this."

"I'm a perfectionist, what can I say?"

"You can say sorry, or-"

And from his pocket he pulled out a small velvet box. Before I could remember how I was going to finish my sentence, he popped it open.

"HOLY SHIT!"

My bug caught me with a clack of plastic backpack clasps against metal.

Sitting in the little box was a bright, solitaire diamond within intricate, delicate silver work.

I didn't even want to know.

I hugged my bug as though it could save me.

Seto looked bewildered. "Joey?"

When I failed to respond, he frowned. "What are you doing?"

"If you drop down onto one knee, I'm committing you, I swear." Because not only were we seventeen years old, he had only known me for a grand total of, what, three months? Out of those weeks we had only been dating for two.

Seto's shoulders dropped and he rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on."

"Don't you give me that, you flash a ring at me and then expect me not to jump to conclusions?"

"We've only known each other for four months!"

"Three."

"I met you your first day of school here, Joey."

"And that was three months ago."

"Whatever, are you going to take it or do I have to put it on your finger for you?"

I eyed the sparkling diamond suspiciously. "No catch?"

"Not catch."

"For reals?"

"No, I'm just telling you that so I can seal you to me forever like some sort of twisted vampire."

I weakened. The winter sun was making the diamond sparkle with a million rainbows. I had never seen something so beautiful in my life, and that sort of embarrassed me. I had always considered myself a rather unmaterialistic person, unique in every way. I hadn't expected myself to be so wooed by a rock.

But it was a really pretty rock...

He took my hand and slipped the ring onto my left ring finger, then chuckled at the look on my face.

"Just wanted to see your face." he explained, moving to take of my ring and move it somewhere else.

I stopped him, though. I could feel my face heating up when he looked up at me in question.

"It's not an engagement ring," I said to him. "But, until further notice, it can be like, I dunno, promise rings are just engagement rings for those afraid of commitment, but..." I reached up and scratched my cheek. For the first time, I found myself over thinking, and decided it was so overrated. "Okay, fine, all the cards down. Either we'll end up married or we'll break up, end of story, and as of this point I'd say we're heading in the marriage direction, so I wouldn't say it hurts."

Seto frowned at me. Then, he shook his head. "You don't make any sense." But he left the ring where it was, glittering like a boss in the sunshine.

But when he took my hand and we made our way to the school, he leaned over and whispered in my ear.

"I do plan on going with you till the end, though, whatever that may be."

Oh yeah. That made me feel fuzzy. And a bit dizzy too.

"Stalker."

"Weirdo."


End file.
